Published at: 19/02/2025 09:00 PM

(EL NACIONAL, February 1989)

• As a foretaste of Black Friday, on February 9, 1983, the country's first major banking crisis occurred: the intervention of the Workers' Bank of Venezuela (BTV).
• “The BTV case constitutes several crimes defined in the Criminal Code... The parties (Ad-Copei) are responsible for what happened in the BTV,” said economist Domingo Maza Zabala.
• Aggravated and continued fraud, embezzlement and illegal enrichment were part of the crimes committed by union leaders of the Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (CTV), leaders of Democratic Action and mainly Eleazar Pinto, as president of that institution, supposedly at the service of the working class, were the causes of the fraudulent bankruptcy of this banking giant.
• At the time of his intervention, BTV's investment portfolio amounted to more than 8 billion bolivars. Through audits, it was determined that a large part of them were intended for loans and promissory notes made to insolvent companies, owned by colleagues or friends of the party.
• BTV's assets were valued at 5,813 million U$D. These proved to be insufficient to cover the amount of bank embezzlement.
• Partisan discipline was not long in coming. The AD CEN immediately spoke out about the innocence of Eleazar Pinto and automatic solidarity created the smokescreen necessary to silence the scandal of the party partner.
• Thousands of workers were defrauded. The BTV managers were never accountable to the organized working class.
• Finally, a year later, Eleazar Pinto was sentenced, serving his sentence on the golf courses of La Lagunita Country Club. The case was shelved and sent to sleep in the court files.
• Trying to excuse Adeco-Copeyan kleptocracy, on this issue and so many other scandals, the gray eminence of Democratic Action, the cleverest mind of the so-called People's Party, Gonzalo Barrios, once declared: “In Venezuela you steal because there are no reasons not to.”

Mazo News Team