Former Venezuela minister of oil arrested for corruption probe

Venezuela's former oil minister, who resigned last year amid corruption allegations, has been arrested for alleged scams involving the disappearance of millions of dollars in oil earnings.

The government said on Tuesday that the once-powerful oil minister of Venezuela, who abruptly quit last year amid a corruption investigation at the top levels of the state-run crude business, had been taken into custody. An alleged scam involving the apparent disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of oil earnings is the reason behind the investigation into the former oil czar. Tareck El Aissami, a prominent Algerian politician, is set to appear in court on Tuesday to face charges of treason, money laundering, and criminal association.

The Ministry of Communications released images of him in handcuffs and with police officers behind him. Attorney General Tarek William Saab has not specified the date of his arrest. A few days prior to the arrest of business executives and high-ranking government officials in March 2023 as part of an investigation into a corruption conspiracy centered on global oil sales, the oil minister tendered his resignation. Following the arrests, El Aissami vanished from view, and his whereabouts were regularly inquired about.

El Aissami's arrest, according to Saab, took some time due to the several phases of the inquiry. The nation's top prosecutor connected the former minister to an alleged plan in which the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, was selling Venezuelan oil through the nation's cryptocurrency monitoring agency.