An investigation by the Center for a Secure Society, led by Global Security and Counterterrorism expert Joseph Humire, whose report entitled “The Maduro-Hezbollah Nexus: How Iran-Backed Networks Underpin the Venezuelan Regime,” includes an investigation into Majed Khalil Majzoub whose tentacles in the Middle East could allegedly make him the candidate to succeed Álex Saab, one of the financial operators of the Nicolás Maduro regime who is currently behind bars in Cape Verde, on an indictment by the United States on charges of money laundering and corruption. . .
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/09/kenneth-starr-201009
. . .
Then there was Universal Identification Solutions—the South American electronic-voting-machine company. The address for U.I.S. was 850 Third Avenue, 15th floor—the same as Starr & Co. Linked to it was a curious character named Gustavo Reyes-Zumeta, based in Virginia, who’d registered a patent for an “ornamental design” on the voting machines. Reyes-Zumeta had declared personal bankruptcy in 2005, and his lawyer for the process didn’t have good memories of him: “He claimed to have contracts to produce voting machines for South American companies,” recalls Thomas DeCaro. “He said he’d get a 600 percent return on a seven-figure investment. You’d lie awake dreaming of the money you’d make … the creditors were crawling all over him.”
Last year, Reyes-Zumeta, a Venezuelan whom his former lawyer describes as looking like a gaucho, reportedly surfaced in El Salvador on the day of the national elections. With the right-wing Arena Party’s longtime hold on the country threatened, he broadcast the election results, after U.I.S. had certified the viability of the electronic vote-counting system.
By November 6, 2009, Angela Arabo, the imprisoned jeweler’s wife, had become suspicious enough of Starr and his talk of windfall profits from the couple’s investment in U.I.S. to tape-record her conversations with him, excerpts of which are contained in the indictment. Reyes-Zumeta was getting checks that day, Starr assured Angela. Starr’s son Ron had “glued himself to” the shadowy Venezuelan to make sure the checks reached the bank, from which the money would flow to Angela.
Three days later, Starr reported a setback: Reyes-Zumeta had been in the hospital. Fortunately, Starr had been in touch with a Venezuelan official. “They’re just working out the final details as we speak.”
“But I thought [Reyes-Zumeta] had the checks already,” Angela said.
Absolutely, Starr assured her. “He just can’t deposit them until he gets word from the minister.”
And so it went, like a Marx Brothers movie, each excuse zanier than the one before. None of the promised riches came through. Instead, the Arabos lost, in all, $13.875 million. (Reyes-Zumeta declined to answer questions from Vanity Fair.)
. . .
thanks