(translation) Manuel Rosales’ Business Networks Exposed

Deputy Mario Isea, who resides over the National Assembly’s Oversight committee, held a press conference on Wednesday [18 November] in which he presented documents, photographs and registrations of the businesses and properties of Manuel Rosales and his foreign business partners. Rosales will have to give explanations about this network of properties when he appears before the Oversight committee on the 28th of November.

Presa Web YVKE, Wednesday 19 November, 2008 – Isea presented the business registrations of the present governor of Zulia, Manuel Rosales, as well as those of his family, his secretary Maritza Bastidas and his friends in Orlando, Florida (USA). Several businesses are known to make up the network, and the investigative committee does not yet know if all pertinent information has come to light. Apart from the RT International Group and the Agricultural company ‘La Milagrosa’ – both of which Deputy Mario Isea already addressed in a press conference last Friday – figure others with strange names such as MR & M, New World International Reality Inc., New World Investments Reality Inc., etc.

Set up of the Rosales’ businesses was always the same: first the company would be put under the name of Maritza Bastidas of a third party, and then the directorate and headquarters of the company would be changed, generally to an office property owned by Rosales. The names which appear most often [in the documents] are Rosales, Tata, Bastidas, and others tied to the Governor of Zulia.

Isea presented photographs of the mansions and real estate purchased by Bastidas and Rosales, and explained that the two airplanes in which Rosales habitually flies are owned by Tobías Carrero, who is also a part of this network.

“This man is not a politician, he’s a scoundrel,” concluded Deputy Isea. “This is an international crime ring. I am making a call to all the opposition: don’t put your political future in the hands of this sort of man.”

Isea also affirmed that “the automatic solidarity of countries [opposed to the Bolivarian Revolution] with Rosales compromise themselves. All who express an automatic solidarity with Rosales without investigating any of this make themselves suspect.”