Alejandro Betancourt López, a 46-year-old Venezuelan businessman with ongoing cases for alleged money laundering in Spain and Switzerland, is today the key figure in the most ambitious oil deal announced by the Trump administration.
Your company, North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), has taken operational control of 17 Venezuelan fields with estimated reserves of over 65 billion barrels.
The rise is as dizzying as it is revealing. Until May of this year, Betancourt was prohibited from leaving the United Kingdom while fighting a Swiss extradition request for alleged money laundering.
Three months later, according to an investigation by the Financial Times, it is the trading partner of the U.S. government in what Trump referred to as "the largest oil deal in history".
Behind that shift is a direct intervention from Washington. According to The Washington Post, senior officials in the Trump administration—including then Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche—contacted Swiss prosecutors regarding the investigation against Betancourt.
In May, Switzerland withdrew the extradition request. Diplomatic sources cited by El País confirm that the influence of Washington is behind that decision.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, until recently an informal emissary of Secretary of State Marco Rubio for Venezuela, acknowledged to Reuters that he and other U.S. officials used Betancourt as an intermediary between the Trump administration and the government of Delcy Rodríguez.
"It is a piece from the United States, and they are using it. Betancourt knows how to market himself, and Americans are buyers," summarized a diplomatic source.
The archetype of the bolichico
Son of a musician and a jewelry designer, Betancourt studied economics at Suffolk University in Boston and returned to Venezuela to become the archetype of the bolichico: young entrepreneur with no prior experience who amassed an extraordinary fortune in the shadow of chavismo.
Your company Derwick Associates secured at least 11 no-bid contracts between 2009 and 2011 for approximately 5 billion dollars to build thermoelectric plants during the electricity emergency declared by Hugo Chávez.
According to a study by Armando Info, the organization Transparencia Venezuela estimated that the overpricing amounted to approximately 2.9 billion dollars. Several of those plants never operated as promised.
From electric contracts, he transitioned to oil. In 2011, he joined Petrozamora, a joint venture with PDVSA and the Russian bank Gazprombank. He was removed in 2022 during the administration of Minister Tareck El Aissami, but regained control in 2024 following the arrest of the latter.
Under his management, field production increased from 20,000 to 200,000 barrels per day, which ultimately drew the attention of Washington.
At the same time, he built up an investor profile in Europe: he is the majority owner of the Spanish eyewear brand Hawkers —in which he invested 50 million euros in 2016— and has stakes in Jobandtalent, Playtomic, and Auro.
Investigations without formal charges
His career bears the weight of numerous investigations. According to a report from Armando.info, four companies in Luxembourg controlled by Betancourt are linked to firms being investigated for money laundering in the United States.
The Miami Herald revealed in 2019 that he was "Conspirator 2" in the Money Flight operation, related to the laundering of 1.2 billion dollars diverted from PDVSA.
On its part, the Spanish National Court reopened in June 2026 a case for money laundering and tax crimes in which he is accused of bribing three officials of PDVSA with 42 million dollars to defraud 4.85 billion in currency operations.
Betancourt has never been formally charged in any jurisdiction. His general counsel at NABEP, Sara Chouraqui —former head of the fraud and corruption division at the UK's Serious Fraud Office— defends him clearly: "Mr. Betancourt has never been accused of any crime in any jurisdiction. He is dedicated to serving the people of Venezuela by driving the economic recovery of the country."
The critical voices are equally forceful. “He is a skilled and unscrupulous operator,” stated Venezuelan journalist César Batiz, who has investigated him for years. An oil executive based in Caracas summarized the moment with a phrase circulating in the sector: “Betancourt is going to be the new viceroy of oil in this hemisphere.”
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