Wed March 24 2021
A former Citgo Petroleum Corp. procurement officer pleaded guilty to a federal criminal charge for his role in a scheme involving the payment of millions of dollars in bribes to help individuals obtain contracts from Citgo and its parent company, the U.S. Justice Department said this week.
Jose Luis De Jongh Atencio, a dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen, on Monday pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston to one count of conspiracy to launder money, according to court documents.
Mr. De Jongh’s plea is the latest in the U.S. government’s investigation into Citgo’s parent, Venezuela’s state-owned energy company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA. At least 28 individuals have been charged by the Justice Department as part of the investigation. Twenty-two of them have pleaded guilty, according to the department.
Mr. De Jongh was charged in July with one count of conspiracy to launder money and five counts of money laundering. He pleaded not guilty at the time.
“Mr. De Jongh has admitted his wrongdoing and accepted full responsibility for his conduct,” Dane Ball, a Smyser Kaplan & Veselka LLP partner representing Mr. De Jongh, said in an email. “Today Mr. De Jongh begins a new chapter of his life.”
A Citgo spokesperson said the company terminated Mr. De Jongh’s employment in 2018 and is cooperating with the government’s investigation.
Efforts to reach PdVSA for comment weren’t successful.
Mr. De Jongh, who worked for Houston-based Citgo’s special projects group, accepted more than $7 million in bribes from businessmen and related companies that were seeking to procure contracts with Citgo and other business advantages between 2013 and 2019, prosecutors said.
Mr. De Jongh admitted to directing bribe payments from individuals into shell companies that he controlled in Panama and Switzerland and then laundering the bribe proceeds through U.S. and international bank accounts, the Justice Department said.
He also received bribes in the form of gifts and other things of value, such as tickets to a 2014 World Series baseball game and a concert by rock band U2, the department said. Mr. De Jongh also used the funds to purchase real property located in the Houston area, prosecutors said.
Fifteen commercial and residential properties in the U.S. that prosecutors said Mr. De Jongh purchased with the bribe proceeds and more than $3 million in total will be seized, according to a forfeiture order signed Monday by U.S. District Judge Gray Miller.
Mr. De Jongh is scheduled to be sentenced in August. He faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the Justice Department.
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