US arrests Turkish businessman accused of helping Venezuela skirt sanctions

MIAMI– A Turkish businessman was arrested in Miami on Monday on charges of helping Venezuela’s state oil company evade US sanctions.

Taskin Torlak, 37, was arrested while trying to return to Turkey, the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

According to court documents, Torlak operated several businesses involved in the shipment of sanctioned oil. As of 2020, he allegedly began working with unnamed co-conspirators and companies from Ukraine, China, Indonesia and elsewhere to transport Venezuela’s crude oil at a time when most Western buyers were steering clear of the South American country for fear of undermining US sanctions against the South American country. the ousting of President Nicolas Maduro.

Torlak and his associates allegedly concealed the identities of the transaction’s beneficiaries to allow U.S. banks to unknowingly process payments related to the illegal oil shipments.

“We could use one of the clean names to avoid getting money stuck somewhere,” he reportedly wrote in a communication with one of the co-conspirators.

To evade detection, the chartered oil tankers regularly disabled their automated tracking systems, a mandatory safety device, when transporting the illegal Venezuelan crude. They also regularly changed the ship register to fly so-called flags of convenience.

It was not immediately possible to find a lawyer for Torlak.

The US began increasing sanctions on Venezuela after Maduro’s first re-election in 2018, banning several key opponents from running. Since then, the self-declared socialist leader has deepened his grip on power and this year claimed he had won a victory third term of six years despite his opponents’ evidence that the vote had been stolen. The US responded with a new round of sanctions against officials accused of it hindering the mood and committing human rights violations.

“The Department of Justice will continue to hold accountable those involved in criminal efforts to circumvent sanctions imposed on the Maduro regime,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in a statement.

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