RICH VENEZUELAN SOCIALISTS LIVE THE HIGH LIFE IN FLORIDA-While their compatriots starve back home

Frontpagemagazine ^ | May 2, 2018 | David Paulin

[SJackson]

Venezuela's spectacular collapse evokes memories of other such socialist nightmares. Blessed with fantastic oil wealth, Venezuela was once the region's richest nation. But after years of leftist policies culminating in Cuban-style socialism, the oil-rich yet impoverished South American nation is now in the throes of a humanitarian crisis – near famine conditions and a hemorrhage of poor refugees pouring into neighboring countries. Venezuela's collapse is like other socialist nightmares in another respect: corruption.

 

Many top officials and friends of the regime have gotten filthy rich through corruption. This is nothing new, to be sure. Like other Third World petrostates, Venezuela has long been a kleptocracy, ranked over the years by corruption watchdog Transparency International as one of the world's most corrupt nations. Venezuela's corruption gravy train, however, soared to epic levels under what the late President Hugo Chávez and successor Nicolás Maduro called “twenty-first-century socialism.” Corrupt officials and insiders got rich in a variety of ways: kick-back schemes and bribes involving state industries; sleazy currency-exchange deals and money laundering; and other nefarious deals – from outright theft of state assets to drug trafficking. Corruption flourished due to a dark side of human nature: absolute power corrupts absolutely. Venezuela's already fragile democracy was destroyed.

 

Corrupt socialists in U.S.

 

It's no fun living in a failed state, not even for Venezuela's filthy rich socialists. So many have relocated with their looted wealth to first-world getaways. The U.S. is a favorite destination, with Florida in particular being a popular haven for ex-officials and insiders. Amusingly, they made a beeline to the U.S. despite Chávez and Maduro's blustering anti-Americanism and praise for communist Cuba. They weren't stupid. In the end, they believed that America – with its rule of law, property rights, and high quality of life – was the place to be.

 

One of these wealthy socialists is Alejandro Andrade, a former bodyguard for Hugo Chávez who rose to become Venezuela's national treasurer. The 53-year-old Andrade now lives on a fabulous estate in Wellington, Florida, an exclusive community just west of West Palm Beach, which Money Magazine once ranked as one of America's 100 best places to live.

 

In recent articles about Andrade's lavish lifestyle, the Palm Beach Post and Miami Herald reported that Andrade has for at least six years occupied a palatial 9,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms, marble floors, and a swimming pool. The house was purchased for $4.75 million through a shell company, the Palm Beach Post reported, and sits on a six-acre estate in a gated community in the heart of “horse country” – a perfect location for Andrade who keeps some 60 horses in a large barn. Their names include Bon Jovi and Armani Z. His son Emanuel Andrade, an Olympic equestrian, hangs out with the rich and famous, including American model Kendall Jenner and Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian clan, the Palm Beach Post reported.

 

Andrade's lavish lifestyle and unexplained wealth has provoked protests from middle-class Venezuelan expatriates living in Florida. They sometimes gather near his estate to draw attention to a man whom they blame for helping to destroy their country.

 

None of this has escaped the attention of the Trump administration, which is reportedly moving against Andrade and other such corrupt Venezuelan expatriates. In South Florida, Federal authorities “are building a massive money laundering case against Andrade and other former Venezuelan officials,” according to the Miami Herald, citing unnamed sources in Miami and former government officials from Venezuela. “Andrade and several other associates in Venezuela’s government, banking and business sectors are suspected of enriching themselves by selling billions of dollars in bonds, capitalizing on fluctuating exchange rates and hiding their profits in Swiss bank accounts and U.S. investments,” the paper reported.

 

“I’m not surprised,” Otto Juan Reich, a former senior official in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, told The Palm Beach Post. “I know that he has been followed very closely by U.S. law enforcement for the last few years.”

 

Reich, who was U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 1986 to 1989, added that while Andrade “is reported to be one of the wealthiest of Chávez’s business partners, he is far from the only one. South Florida is crawling with Venezuelan boligarchs.” (Boligarch is a term invented by Venezuelans to describe Hugo Chávez's filthy rich cronies and government insiders. It's a portmantu of the surname of Venezuela's independence hero Simón Bolívar, Hugo Chávez hero, and the word “oligarch.” “ Bolívar” also is the name of Venezuela's currency.)

 

Recently, the Trump administration imposed financial sanctions on a number of top Venezuelan officials, including Venezuela's vice president Tareck El Aissami who is accused of being a drug kingpin. His assets include upscale properties in Miami and a U.S.-registered corporate jet. It's ironic: Venezuela's America-hating socialists are fond of their U.S. properties. The Trump administration is thus hitting them where it hurts – freezing financial assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction and making it illegal for U.S. citizens to transact business with them.

 

In all, recent sanctions targeted 13 current or former senior officials of Venezuela's government. One aim was to punish officials for President Maduro's sham referendum establishing a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution. Maduro, a bus driver-turned politician, must have made his Cuban handlers proud with this power grab.

 

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, “Venezuelan Government corruption is associated heavily – but by no means exclusively – with two government entities. The first of these is Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), from which approximately $11 billion went missing between 2004 and 2014, according to news accounts of a report by a Venezuelan congressional commission. Another significant engine of corruption in Venezuela involves the black market surrounding the official exchange rate regime set by the National Center for Foreign Commerce (Centro Nacional de Comercio Exterior, or CENCOEX).”

 

And in another anti-corruption effort, officials from the U.S. and 15 nations in Europe and Latin American joined forces in April to find and seize ill-gotten proceeds from corrupt Venezuelan officials, ex-officials, and insiders, reported the Associated Press. “Concrete actions are necessary to restrict the ability of corrupt Venezuelan officials and their support networks from abusing the international financial system,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was involved in the decision on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund’s spring gathering in Washington, D.C. The goal is to return stolen proceeds to Venezuela in a post-Maduro government committed to rebuilding Venezuela, according to officials attending the meeting.

 

It's an old story. In socialist regimes – from Soviet Russia and China to Cuba and North Korea – ruling elites and insiders live very well while ordinary people face daily deprivations and even starve. In Venezuela, the clock is now ticking for the Maduro regime as the Trump administration targets rich socialists who helped destroy their own country.

 

David Paulin, an Austin, TX-based freelance journalist, covered Hugo Chávez's rise to power while based in Caracas as a foreign correspondent. He also reported from the Caribbean while based in Kingston, Jamaica.

[Chode]

do I really have to say it???

[dfwgator]

And they’ll vote Democrat in the next election.

[I want the USA back]

Always that way. In socialist/communist countries, and in the USA, there is a ruling leftist elite which lives high off the hog and scorns the people who work hard and have their money confiscated to pay for the lifestyle of the their-$hit-don’t-stink crowd.

[Truth29]

Sounds like where the Democrats want to take the US. California is where their government model is furthest developed.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

“My health...I came for the waters.”

[Popman]

Trump is going after this guy ?

Impossible ! According to my brother Trump is even more corrupt than him...

You know criminals stick together...!!!

Too bad my brother is a loon...

[rrrod]

Not the ones I know...2 or 3 generations US citizens...several doctors, lawyers and other upper middle class. They HATE Chaves/Maduro! And pro American Trumpers.
The article suggests there are lots of the regime’s pals here but while there are some in the article is true they are few.

[miss marmelstein]

How do we allow this? They should be taking refuge, as they usually do, in Switzerland. This is outrageous.

[indthkr]

Florida is full of rich Latin American socialists I am told....

[Gay State Conservative]

Their compatriots aren't starving...there will be an adequate supply of protein as long as there are still zoo animals.I've been told that giraffe tastes a lot like pork.

[Salvavida]

The State Dept has a tool in which corrupt officials can loose their resident status, visas, money, property, and be deported if it is proven they cashed in at the expense of human rights or terrorism.

[Rebelbase]

I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the prevalence and severity of human rights abuse and corruption that have their source, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, such as those committed or directed by persons listed in the Annex to this order, have reached such scope and gravity that they threaten the stability of international political and economic systems. Human rights abuse and corruption undermine the values that form an essential foundation of stable, secure, and functioning societies; have devastating impacts on individuals; weaken democratic institutions; degrade the rule of law; perpetuate violent conflicts; facilitate the activities of dangerous persons; and undermine economic markets. The United States seeks to impose tangible and significant consequences on those who commit serious human rights abuse or engage in corruption, as well as to protect the financial system of the United States from abuse by these same persons.

I therefore determine that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

I hereby determine and order:

Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-blocking-property-persons-involved-serious-human-rights-abuse-corruption/

[Don Corleone]

Argentina was once one of the leading economies of the world until Socialism took hold. The death knell was rung by the Peron junta. No tears from me.

[FLT-bird]

Sieze their ill gotten gains and throw them in prison.

On a side note, it’s a shame for Venezuela, but we have gotten some really high quality immigrants from that country (doctors, engineers, executives, accountants, etc) who have been thoroughly inoculated against socialism - like the first few waves of Cubans. Socialists always benefit neighboring countries by driving the best and brightest out of whatever country they’re in the process of ruining.

[Wolfie]

Many top officials and friends of the regime have gotten filthy rich through corruption.

Just like Congress.

[GOPJ]

Many top officials and friends of the regime have gotten filthy rich through corruption.

Ummm, THAT'S HOW COMMUNISM WORKS. TOP OFFICIALS AND FRIENDS GET RICH AND POWERFUL AND THE PEOPLE BECOME SLAVES.

Cuba's the same type of sh*thole... All talk about 'the people' getting more and all 'reality' of thugs taking everything.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I guess they wanted to leave the country before the peasants could rise up and shoot them.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

They could always get Ted “Kill ‘Em and Grill ‘Em” Nugent to go down there and show them how to properly prepare the meat, I suppose.

Then there are always lots of insects.

[Retvet]

Typical of leftists, look at the leftist billionaires, and Democratic party Washington elitists.