CARACAS: Prosecutors in Ecuador are investigating $135 million in suspicious transactions that flowed through a shared virtual currency system with Venezuela, highlighting the ways criminals can exploit financial systems designed to facilitate trade for their own gain.
According to Attorney General Galo Chiriboga, the Attorney General’s Office has started investigating $135 million in “illegal exports” to Venezuela that flowed through the Unitary System of Regional Compensation (which goes by the Spanish acronym SUCRE), a virtual currency adopted in 2009 by members of the regional trade bloc ALBA that was designed to ease trade, reported Agence France-Presse.
Exporters allegedly sent only $3 million worth of goods to Venezuela, but claimed income of over $130 million, according to AFP, a money-laundering tactic known as trade mis-invoicing. The money reportedly stayed in Ecuador for only 72 hours, eventually heading to the United States, Venezuela, and other tax havens.
Although the attorney general did not specify which companies are under investigation or on which dates the suspicious transactions occurred, their investigation was likely prompted by an investigation published in April by Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo, Miami-based newspaper El Nuevo Herald, and Venezuelan journalist outlet Armando.info.
In that investigation (which InSight Crime translated here) reporters uncovered $238 million in suspicious SUCRE transactions involving 60 Venezuelan companies and 30 Ecuadorian companies, much of which ended up in Panama and Florida. Companies routinely overvalued their exports, allowing them to launder vast amounts of money, and in some cases claimed exports that never existed at all.
