Venezuela: former execs of state oil company arrested

By Diego Carranza BOGOTÁ, (AA) - Venezuelan former oil minister, Eulogio Del Pino, and the president of the state oil company PDVSA, Nelson Martínez, were arrested Thursday, accused of being part of a corruption network.
According to the general prosecutor Tarek Willam Saab, the arrests are part of a series of corruption investigations at the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela.
"Today a series of apprehensions and arrests are happening in another plot that has to do with corruption in PDVSA," told Saab in a news conference.
The investigations due to irregularities in the Orinoco Oil Belt (the region with the most oil reserves in the world), have revealed a broad corruption pattern.
"We will go to the bottom with everything of PDVSA subsidiaries, we have the support of the head of State and the workers," he added.
Among the alleged irregularities, mafia groups were found distorting the numbers and abnormalities within the oil company Citgo, a subsidiary of US PDVSA, for which high officers in the oil industry are being investigated.
“We are talking about the dismantling of a delinquency organized group that was installed within PDVSA”, said the officer, explaining that additional high members which were detained recently, linked Del Pino and Martinez in corruption cases.
Talking to the reporters, Saab pointed out that the authorities are seeking another 16 people, but he did not mention any direct names.
Petrozamora, another subsidiary of PDVSA, is also part of the investigations. More than 60 people were halted in the last weeks. *Daniela Mendoza and Maria Paula Triviño contributed with this report.