MIAMI _ A South Florida businessman is the largest owner of a joint project with the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense to process gold mined in the depths of the Amazon rainforest, despite sanctions imposed by Washington on the entire regime of President Nicolas Maduro, as well as on the nation's billion-dollar mining industry.
Venezuelan-Trinidadian businessman Clemente Ricardo Silva, who lives in the city of Doral, is the main investor in a gold-processing plant under construction in the remote Venezuelan town of Las Claritas, according to military sources and documents obtained by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. Silva entered into the project in partnership with the Venezuelan military and key figures of the authoritarian government, the sources and documents reveal.
But Silva claims he sold his interest in the project, and showed the Miami Herald copies of two letters that he said were sent to Venezuela's mining ministry notifying officials of his intentions to get rid of his shares after the United States sanctioned Venezuela's gold industry on March 19, 2019. However, as of Jan. 20, he and his sons still appear in the country's corporate registry as the company's main owners, holding 80% of the outstanding shares. And minutes from an October 2019 board meeting show Silva participating as a shareholder. That meeting took place months after Silva says he sold his shares back to the company's majority investor.
As oil revenues plummet, Venezuela's fast-growing gold industry has become a crucial source of revenue for Maduro's regime, which is under broad U.S. sanctions. Gold mining in Venezuela, and across Latin America, is violent, pervaded by organized crime and environmentally destructive. Much of Venezuela's "blood" gold is sold abroad to unsuspecting consumers, with some of the metal ending up in Miami, a joint Herald investigation with the Colombian news organization InfoAmazonia found last year.
The new plant tied to Silva is being built in Bolivar state, in southeastern Venezuela, in a corner that contains one of the country's richest deposits of gold. The plant would initially be able to process about 400 tons of gold-rich sands per day to produce between 80 and 150 kilograms of gold per month, or between 1 and 2 tons of the metal per year. That's as much as $100 million annually.
But the bulk of the plant's gold production is unlikely to reach state coffers, as required by Venezuelan law, said Manuel Cristopher Figuera, former director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service.
As is the case with most of the region's gold production, the complex's output would likely be delivered to the regime with the profits being used to grease the palms of the military officers that support it, said Cristopher Figuera, a former major general who was Maduro's chief of intelligence until he defected in April.
The Venezuelan regime uses proceeds from smuggling and selling gold abroad to buy the loyalty of the military as it battles international sanctions and domestic opposition. Wildcat miners, the military and armed Colombian groups including the National Liberation Army have on occasion battled for control of the mines, but Maduro's criminal syndicate aided by the Venezuelan military has emerged in control of the gold mines, said Cristopher Figuera.
"Maduro runs a criminal enterprise," said Cristopher Figuera, who said he investigated the "looting" of the Venezuelan gold sector before leaving for the United States under imminent risk of arrest.
In this criminal enterprise, "no written traces are left, but instructions are given (under the table), operating as a gang of criminals, for the allocation of these (gold) contracts," he said in a telephone interview.
Silva became the largest shareholder in the company building the plant, Grupo Orizonia, in February 2019 after financing the purchase of Chinese equipment used in the project.
Returning from Venezuela, Silva confirmed that he had bought the Chinese equipment and bought the shares, but said that he took steps to sell his interest in the company the following month, in March, upon learning that the U.S. administration had sanctioned the Venezuelan state-run gold operations.
"When (the sanctions announcement) came out we introduced a request for the sale" from the Venezuelan Ministry of Mines, Silva said.
According to Silva, the requests were first delivered in March and later in September to the ministry, which he said has yet to answer. The businessman produced copies of the letters he said had been sent, but the Miami Herald could not confirm independently that they had been delivered.
Silva said that he currently doesn't have direct participation in the business, having signed a private document with the previous majority shareholder of Grupo Orizonia, Americo Figuera, to sell him back 80% of the company in exchange for a signed promise to receive his initial investment back once production starts.
Americo Figuera confirmed that a private agreement between him and Silva had taken place concerning the company's ownership.
But as of today, the transfer of ownership has yet to take place. That fact was acknowledged in the minutes of the last shareholder meeting logged in Venezuela's corporate registry, where Silva attended as the owner of 30% of the business, accompanied by his two sons, Klemens Alejandro Silva and Ricardo Leslie Silva, who are owners of 25% each.
In that meeting, held in October, the officers agreed to register a change in Grupo Orizonia's physical address, moving the company to the same office floor where the headquarters of Silva's company, the Silva Group, is located in the Venezuelan city of Puerto Ordaz.
