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U.S. seized millions from corrupt Venezuelan kleptocrats. A Miami lawsuit seeks to get it back

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--- Quote ---U.S. seized millions from corrupt Venezuelan kleptocrats. A Miami lawsuit seeks to get it back
By Esther Medina | Meta Viers

When prosecutors won a major money-laundering conviction of Venezuela’s former national treasurer, the feds grabbed hundreds of millions of dollars that he had stolen from his government and invested in an equestrian farm, show-jumping horses, luxury cars and bank accounts in South Florida.

The money from those tainted assets belongs to the U.S. Treasury, not Venezuela’s socialist government, prosecutors declared in November. The ex-Venezuelan treasurer, Alejandro Andrade, was “complicit” in the crime of taking bribes and selling access to an official currency-exchange system that converted bolivars into billions, prosecutors argued. Venezuela, as a sovereign state, is not a “victim” of his crime under U.S. law.

Now, a group of Miami lawyers are challenging the Justice Department’s stand in the ongoing South Florida money-laundering prosecutions of wealthy Venezuelan defendants, known as “kleptocrats.” The lawyers are seeking to recover potentially hundreds of millions of dollars for Venezuela’s people, who are struggling through an economic disaster.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article229409649.html
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