{"id":82840,"date":"2026-09-03T04:17:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T04:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/who-is-alejandro-betancourt-the-colourful-oil-baron-behind-us-venezuela-oil-deal\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T04:17:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T04:17:24","slug":"who-is-alejandro-betancourt-the-colourful-oil-baron-behind-us-venezuela-oil-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/who-is-alejandro-betancourt-the-colourful-oil-baron-behind-us-venezuela-oil-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Alejandro Betancourt, the colourful oil baron behind US-Venezuela oil deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to the Washington Post, US authorities urged Switzerland to drop its extradition request against the businessman before the British courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The request was granted by the Swiss authorities, and last May a London court lifted the travel ban placed upon him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Switzerland did not present the evidence requested by the English judges to support its extradition request, and therefore the travel ban was lifted,&#8221; Betancourt&#8217;s lawyer told BBC News Mundo, while acknowledging this does not necessarily mean the end of the Swiss investigations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to Axios, in the first minutes after the military operation on 3 January that concluded with US forces seizing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, Betancourt spoke with then-Vice-President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez and convinced her to speak with Rubio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This version was corroborated by his lawyer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He acted as an intermediary,&#8221; said Sale. &#8220;He had nothing to do with Maduro&#8217;s departure, but since he had everyone&#8217;s trust, he became an intermediary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Wednesday, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, now interim president of Venezuela, defended Betancourt, saying he has no pending cases in that country or the US.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Often a person is judged in the media before in the courts,&#8221; she said in the oil baron&#8217;s defence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For those who have followed Betancourt&#8217;s career for years, one thing is clear. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He&#8217;s very skillful,&#8221; Boyd concluded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He always manages to be where he needs to be to avoid problems and make money.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cyvze0n4vy1o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the Washington Post, US authorities urged Switzerland to drop its extradition request against the businessman before the British courts. The request was granted by the Swiss authorities, and last May a London court lifted the travel ban placed upon him. &#8220;Switzerland did not present the evidence requested by the English judges to support [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82840"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82842,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82840\/revisions\/82842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}