Dino Bouterse, son of the president of Suriname, was arrested today in Panama to be deported to the US on allegations of drug smuggling.
Moving up in the world, I see. This was him in 2010 with a couple guys who look vaguely familiar.
(Update a week later — seems Dino was pals with lots more interesting characters in Venezuela.)
Madasi Oil’s Marcos da Silva writes with his respondes to the lawsuit I reported here. The response is in Spanish legalese but I think the short of it is “hey, you can’t sue us, we were screwed too!”
If you recall, the scam company Arevenca sold an $8 million cargo of asphalt to a Puerto Rico paving company with Madasi acting as the broker. Madasi says in its suit that it was supposed to get a 25% commission on the deal, or $1.75 million, which was then reduced to $1.55 million. The payment was made but the asphalt never arrived, and now Madasi is countersuing the Diaz family for allegedly having cost Madasi business worth, and I quote, “eight hundred billion dollars ($800,000,000.00).” Plus reputational harm to Madasi of $5 million, and additional harm to Lausell of $10 million.
As always we’re happy to offer a forum in which the subjects of commentary can offer their reply, so without additional commentary, here it is. Gotta say though that I won’t be posting anything else on here about this case unless Arevenca itself files a brief, until something big happens.
RECONVENCIO, DEMANDA DE COPARTE Y DEMANDA CONTRA TERCEROS
CONTESTACION A LA DEMANDA – MADASI
You may now return to your previously scheduled Chávez-Capriles nail-biting session.
Arevenca, the fake oil company long documented in these pages for its deceptive web site and involvement in a failed airline in Aruba, is being sued along with several people who allegedly acted as salesmen for a scam in Puerto Rico. The Betteroads Asphalt Corp. alleges in a suit filed Sept. 4 in the US territory that it bought a cargo of asphalt from Arevenca following a sales pitch by prominent Puerto Rico businessman Miguel Lausell on behalf of local Arevenca representative Madasi Oil Co. The suit accuses Arevenca, Madasi and individuals including Lausell of fraud and breach of contract and demands a refund of $7.8 million that Betteroads spent on asphalt and another $5.8 million in other damages.
Betteroads, according to the complaint and a series of e-mails filed with the court, thought that the $7.8 million it sent to the Swiss bank account of Arevenca would entitle it to a tanker of asphalt, and was disappointed to find that tanker-loads of excuses, lies and delays were wholly inadequate for the task of resurfacing highways and parking lots even in the magical realm of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. After months spent arguing with various representatives of Arevenca, including company president Francisco Javier González Álvarez, Lausell, and others, Betteroads has turned to the court systems of the United States, which seems to be the end-point of many conflicts involving shady Caribbean and Venezuelan operators. Continue reading
My notes about Arevenca have attracted a lot of really strange, often very informative comments, mostly from anonymous or pseudonymous correspondents. But they have also inspired a weird fight between people upset with one another in Italy. They have been using the comments section of this site to make all manner of allegations and counter-allegations. They started out straightforwardly enough, but at this point, I don’t have the connections, skills or interest to disentangle their concerns. I am summarizing the issues here as a way to isolate this fight to one thread and get myself out of this festival of mud-slinging. Continue reading
Francisco Javier González is president of fake oil company Arevenca and owner of failed airline Fly Aruba. Yesterday, González was stopped at the Queen Beatrix Airport in Aruba as he tried to go through customs to get on a general aviation plane, BoletinExtra reports.
I am aware of at least three people who claim to have lost more than $100,000 to Arevenca, with a total loss of about $20 million. But as long as Arevenca took money from the rich, González was able to go from country to country without too much trouble. Most victims never come forward, for fear of being labeled as suckers. But when he recruited workers away from stable jobs and then failed to pay them — apparently, that is the kind of thing that gets you in trouble.
One fun thing I like to do is watch when web pages are changed or removed. As I look into possibly untoward behaviour in the oil industry, I keep coming across situations where information disappears from the Internet. I give you three recent examples. Each one is minor, and I don’t want to speculate on people’s motives. I have no problem with privacy. I just don’t like memory holes, where information of public value was public and then disappears. So I am preserving and pointing out a few tidbits. Continue reading
I recognise Francisco Javier González and Glenbert Croes. Who else is in this picture? Any information will be helpful.
Click for full size
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UPDATING: Thanks to Otto, the Devil, Boz, and my sister for pointing out the name tags on the table and/or the names in the video. The problem is that Abraham Reek and Martino Schiera, for example, have so little Internet paper trail that I am unsure if they are using their real names. I’m hoping that people who know these folks will come forward.
This is the way Fly Aruba ends, not with a bang but a roar down the jetway.
Thanks again to readers JS and T for keeping me updated on this. Look up the history of this plane and others at FlightAware.
UPDATING: it looks like the flight plan was filed a day early. The plane will go to Brownsville today, according to a newly filed flight plan.
Responding to the comment that “why” is the important issue here, all I can say is yes, of course. But the real “why” may never be known. Starting an airline is an odd thing to do with one’s money. I am starting to think it’s an apt coincidence that Arevenca is in the old Stanford Bank offices in Oranjestad.
According to our trusty correspondents, a labour case against fake oil company Arevenca began on Friday. The court may seize the company’s furniture and such within a couple months to help pay debts to workers at Fly Aruba, a fake airline that Arevenca started (for reasons that I’m sure will someday become clear — NOT). The workers sued for back wages after not being fully paid for two months, which is apparently a violation of some law or another in Aruba.
Pa incumplimento di pago avion di Fly Aruba ta bai bek
Which is to say, Fly Aruba’s one jet is being repossessed for non-payment. The registered owner, according to the FAA database, is “Wells Fargo Bank Northwest NA Trustee.” So Wells, or their client, is doing an international repo.
Up next, I hear another Arevenca victim is in the wings waiting to sue, but then, I’ve been hearing that since February. So we’ll see.
A trusty correspondent in Aruba writes that Arevenca, the fake oil company, will go to trial today in the island nation over unpaid wages to workers at its Fly Aruba subsidiary.
Workers will request that the state seize Arevenca assets and auction them to pay workers at the airline, which has yet to receive an operating license, writes reader JS. He said the workers were called in last night at 5:30 pm to get their pay and call off the suit. But, he says, the daughter of the owner gave them a pay slip for less money than they were supposed to receive. They got mad and left.
As far as I know, Arevenca has never been successfully served with a lawsuit. So this should be interesting.
Setty's notebook 