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Venezuelans Charged in U.S. Over Energy Contract Bribes

  • Nations’s ex-minister of electric energy implicated in scheme
  • Criminal case coincides with widespread daily power outages
People walk past an electrical substation run by Corpoelec, in a slum in Caracas, Venezuela.

People walk past an electrical substation run by Corpoelec, in a slum in Caracas, Venezuela.

Photographer: Meridith Kohut/Bloomberg

A former Venezuelan government official and a former officer at Corpoelec SA, Venezuela’s state-owned power company, were charged by U.S. prosecutors with taking bribes to award $60 million in business to Florida-based companies.

Luis Alfredo Motta Dominguez, 60, and Eustiquio Jose Lugo Gomez, 55, were indicted on both conspiracy and money laundering charges. Motta was until recently Venezuela’s minister of electrical energy while Lugo was Corpoelec’s procurement director, according to Ariana Fahardo Orshan, the U.S. Attorney in Miami.