Posts Tagged ‘testaferro’

“Concealments”

January 10, 2026
Ricardo F. Morín
Erasures
Watercolor rub-offs on Japanese tissue paper
14″x20″
2005

Ricardo F. Morín

January 10, 2026

Oakland Park, Fl

*

1.

Public discussion often treats corruption as a series of discrete scandals attached to identifiable individuals.  That framing is misleading.  Investigative reporting and judicial records increasingly show that, particularly in the Venezuelan case, responsibility is displaced through repeatable actions that allow illicit benefit while obscuring accountability.

2.

The PBS Frontline documentary examining the rise and role of Alex Saab provides a clear point of entry.  Saab did not function as a policymaker or symbolic representative.  According to United States indictments and sustained investigative reporting, he acted as a testaferro—a fraudulent front man—through whom contracts, assets, and payments were routed to conceal the true beneficiaries.

3.

The diagnostic importance of Saab lies not in his personal profile but in the action he performed.  A testaferro is not a neutral intermediary.  He lends his name so that authority may receive benefit while denying responsibility for the consequences of its decisions.  The contractual signatory does not indicate decision-making authority.

4.

This action appears repeatedly in Venezuela across multiple domains:  oil sales conducted through intermediaries, food import programs delivering overpriced or tainted goods, housing projects funded and left incomplete, and financial transfers designed to evade sanctions and scrutiny.  Each domain differs in form, but the same action recurs:  authorization is granted, benefit accrues, and responsibility is displaced.

5.

The same displacement of responsibility appears in the use of irregular armed groups that exercise coercion without formal attribution.  Their actions do not require demonstrable command.   The absence of a traceable chain of authority is not incidental but integral:   force is applied while authorship remains deniable.

6.

At this stage, individual corruption gives way to criminal conduct sustained over time.  United States prosecutors have alleged that these financial and logistical actions coincide with narcotics trafficking and money laundering attributed to senior civilian and military officials, including Nicolás Maduro.  These allegations rest on claims of coordination, protection, and benefit.

7.

What U.S. indictments and investigative journalism describe as the Cartel de los Soles does not depend on the existence of a unified chain of command.  The term refers to a condition in which drug trafficking depends on permission, tolerance, or protection by state authorities rather than independent criminal initiative.

8.

Under this account, Saab is neither anomaly nor mastermind.  He is a replaceable participant whose removal does not interrupt the conduct described.  The persistence of the activity depends on substitution, not on loyalty or hierarchy.

9.

This clarification resolves a recurrent confusion in public debate.  Describing these actions does not constitute moral judgment or ideological hostility.  It identifies delegated fraud through which authority preserves outward legitimacy while transferring legal exposure to intermediaries.

10.

When these actions extend across ministries, borders, and markets and are sustained by coercive power, they exceed ordinary corruption.  They constitute organized criminal conduct exercised with the capacity of the State, regardless of whether a classic cartel form is present.

11.

The significance of the Frontline investigation is not that it adds another episode to a familiar narrative.  It shows how the use of front men allows this conduct to persist over time.  What follows from this recognition is not vindication but clarity about why accountability cannot be achieved by removing individuals alone.

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