Armando.info: To buy gold bars, any Bancasa is good

In 1999 and without major pretensions, a small business, Bancasa SApointing as the address to a house in Los Naranjos de Guacara, in the central western state of Carabobo, and which today only exhibits the passage of time.

Abandoned in the middle of a middle-class urbanization drowned by the Venezuelan crisis, at its door some corroded wooden rocking chairs and a Christmas ornament make their way through the vegetation that invaded the space.

That address was written by Manuel Joao Goncalves Pita, a Portuguese nationalized Venezuelan who was then 51 years old and who registered the company with a futuristic vision by appointing one of his nephews, little David Pita Bracho – who was then 12 years old – as one of its owners. And the future took its time, since Bancasa SA rested in the archives of that registry for 15 years without any activity. Zero movements, zero financial balances, zero changes in its board of directors or in its corporate name, then dedicated to the real estate sector.

Until the quantum leap to the scandal, again with the signature of Goncalves Pita no longer as its owner, but as the representative of Bancasa SA in a contract signed in 2019 in which the company bought, for more than 68 million dollars , the bicoca of 104 gold bars to the National Development Fund (Fonden).

The document was leaked to the Spanish press from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard of that country as an operation almost outside, but very revealing, of the investigation that has uncovered a thick business plot carried out by senior officials of the Spanish government headed by Pedro Sánchez and which exhibits two corruption schemes: the first, a management for the massive purchase of masks, at a premium, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The second, a scheme for the diversion of funds to the Spanish public treasury of at least 182 million euros in oil businesses.

In both operations and in the investigation in general, the name of Victor de Aldama stands out, a Spaniard identified as the great communicating vessel between Spanish government officials such as the Minister of Transportation, José Abalos, and discovered as one of the operators behind the purchase and transfer of the 104 gold bars with the Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodríguez.

Among the findings of the UCO investigation are screenshots of the exchange of instant messages between Rodríguez and Aldama, currently imprisoned by the Spanish authorities and a figure that is key to understanding the involvement of Bancasa SA in the purchase of the gold bars. Key because Aldama is a friend of David Pita Bracho, that 12-year-old boy who was part owner of the company until 2018, when at the age of 31 he became owner of 100% of the shares.
The documents also reveal that the gold movement operation – whose whereabouts is unknown – that would travel from Moscow to Zambia between December 29, 2019 and January 3, was also closely followed by Pita Bracho, who accounted for each movement to Aldama.

By Isayén Herrera. More information at Armando.info.