Published at: 21/10/2026 09:00 PM

THE CASE OF THE CAR BOMB EXPLOSION HAS BEEN FULLY CLARIFIED

(2001, October 16, 1993; Elite, October 19, 1993; ZETA, November 9, 1995, 2001, November 1993)

• On October 16, 1993, the President of the Republic Ramón J. Velázquez declared that the cases of the car bomb that exploded in the Ciudad Tamanaco Shopping Center and the terrorist wave that plagued Caracas for months were fully clarified, stating that: “the truth will be told whoever falls”.
• The picket of the presidential statement revealed that characters of the high nobility of Caracas, related to the blue-blooded surnames of the Masters of the Valley, were the protagonists of crimes that kept the population in distress and sowed various scenes in the city with the blood of working people.
• The following day, they were arrested and taken to the Catia Retén:
  • Thor Halvorssen Hellum
  • Ramiro Helmeyer
  • Ibrahim Sosa Velutini
  • Walter del Nogal
  • Álvaro Campins Camejo
  • Andrés Ramírez Hertzi
  • Danilo Díaz Granados
  • Oliver Alas Torres
  • Alberto Cabrices
  • Henry López Sisco
• This mafia, led by Thor Halvorssen Hellum, former president of the Venezuelan National Anonymous Telephone Company (CANTV), in partnership with agents of the Caracas Stock Exchange and a commissioner of the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP), Henry López Sisco, left one dead, one official mutilated (one-armed) and several injured.
• The presence of Thor Halvorssen in this macabre move of cars and envelope bombs to collapse stock indices, at a time when two former presidents of the republic were in jail or in the dock, gave this whole case an undeniably conspiratorial bias.
• Halvorssen's close relationship and sympathy with Carlos Andrés Pérez is well known, and Henry López Sisco's friendship with Jaime Lusinchi dates back to old.
• For his part, Ramiro Helmeyer, son-in-law of banker Pedro Tinoco (several times minister and former president of the Central Bank of Venezuela), declared that Thor Halvorssen was the financial genius, who in turn orchestrated the explosive plan. Initially, with the objective of intimidating the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) and subsequently causing a stock market stampede.
• Halvorssen, in association with the sons and sons-in-law of bankers, hired Helmeyer, who in turn, in his capacity as former official of the General Sectorial Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention (DISIP), hired his colleague, Commissioner López Sisco.
• As a result of this conspiracy, the agavillate criminals set off nine bombs in Caracas, over a period of five months, with the degenerate purpose of causing panic in the CSJ and the collapse of public debt bonds, in addition to the high-yield stocks of the Caracas Stock Exchange, namely CANTV and Electricidad de Caracas (EDC) .
• Based on investigations carried out by the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ), the Criminal Judge of First Instance, Noel Vera Sandoval, issued an arrest warrant to those mentioned above for the manufacture, placement and detonation of explosive devices in:
  • The Ciudad Tamanaco Shopping Center (CCCT).
  • The headquarters of the Vehicle Division of the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) in El Rosal.
  • The headquarters of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ).
  • The headquarters of the Federation of Industrialists and Chambers of Commerce of Venezuela (FEDECÁMARAS).
  • The residences of Judges Alirio Abreu Burelli and Gonzalo Rodríguez Corro.
  • A Gasoline Service Station in Altamira.
  • The headquarters of the National Executive Committee (CEN) for Democratic Action (AD).
  • The School of Nursing of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), located in the Santa Eduvigis residential area.
  • The Full Chola car park in Parque Central and in a restaurant in the capital.
• After two months of investigations and collection of evidence, Commissioner Orlando Jordán Petit, then director general of the PTJ, declared the case “solved by police”.
• Ramiro Helmeyer sang everything he knew, including the names and surnames of all the people involved, confessing, incidentally, to the murder of the mobster Mario Patti, who, in the company of Walter del Nogal, was thrown into the sea from his private plane.
• The justice system of the time, unusually, left this crime unpunished under the abhorrent anti-legal criterion that since there is no “corpus delictis” (body of the victim) there is no crime. Mario Patti thus disappeared on the high seas.

Mazo News Team