Executing Company with the World’s Foremost Vendor of Nonexistent Oil

All illustrations by Penelope Gazin

Arturo Díaz Jr. wanted a consumer. He experienced turned 1,000 acres of his family’s Puerto Rico waterfront into a luxury housing progress named Coco Beach, but the genuine estate bubble experienced burst and the banking companies were on his circumstance. At 91, getting led a profitable vocation in building, he was completely ready to be rid of his share of the $200 million white elephant. So when a mate named Miguel Lausell explained he was working with a billionaire who could want to invest in, Díaz was ready to talk.

Lausell was an aged acquaintance, and his popularity was stable: Harvard Regulation, a former cellphone enterprise president, a Democratic Occasion fundraiser. He was functioning for an oil-investing start off-up, Madasi Oil, representing a considerably much larger Aruban oil corporation identified as Arevenca. So Lausell and his companion, Marcos Da Silva, the CEO of Madasi, satisfied with Díaz. They mentioned the president of Arevenca, a billionaire named Francisco Javier González Álvarez, was interested in the home. Díaz known as for his helicopter and gave the Madasi companions a tour.

While Díaz was centered on authentic estate, Lausell was pushing one more offer you. Díaz’s primary business was Betteroads Asphalt, a paving contractor. Lausell preferred to know irrespective of whether Betteroads required 100,000 barrels of asphalt from Arevenca. At $88 a barrel—well below the market place price tag of about $100—it was a steal. Even though he waited to operate out the information of the residence sale, Díaz bargained down the selling price and well prepared to pony up $7.8 million for a tanker of Trinidadian tar.

Díaz preferred the strategy of developing a connection with anyone who could pay out $300 million for his share of Coco Beach front, so he disregarded the different warning signs bordering the asphalt deal—the reality, for case in point, that Arevenca preferred the cash wired in income to a numbered Swiss bank account, a practice extra typical the moment a romance is now set up. A different warning indicator: Arevenca was not a common title. But Díaz didn’t think about Lausell would steer him mistaken.

In July, Díaz’s organization, Betteroads, wired $2 million. An additional $5.8 million adopted in August.

The tanker hardly ever arrived.

By September, Díaz realized some thing was critically mistaken. Betteroads went to the law, but no one particular was arrested. Following a calendar year of conversations, Betteroads sued Madasi and Arevenca in Puerto Rico. This calendar year, Betteroads has pursued felony expenses in Spain. But the Díaz household has yet to get better a cent, and most likely hardly ever will. (Madasi is also suing Arevenca in US court.)

Arevenca, it turns out, was a sophisticated variation of what some traders simply call a “joker broker.” They are all around the world-wide-web, offering, say, the total world’s production of jet gas or Russian diesel, at a discount—call now! With each and every con running to the millions of dollars, it only can take one particular successful task to spend for many years of energy. It’s low-possibility work. In a dozen interviews I performed with the FBI, funds-laundering experts, oil traders, and industry executives, no 1 could detect a US prosecution for product sales of nonexistent oil products and solutions. Few victims go general public, fearing the stigma of seeking like a sucker. There are ample victims to feed a extensive ecosystem of joker brokers, in which Díaz had appear up in opposition to probably the king of them all: Arevenca’s founder, Francisco Javier González Álvarez.

Francisco Javier González Álvarez’s daily life is shrouded in secrecy, but we know this: He was born December 3, 1949, in La Laguna, in the Canary Islands, off of Spain. The upcoming 45 several years are a little bit of a blank, and González declined recurring job interview requests. Previous confidants offer tiny about his previous, other than that he was married at the very least after. He experienced at minimum two young ones. Nothing to point out he would turn out to be the world’s foremost seller of nonexistent oil.

The paper path of his shady dealings starts in Venezuela in 1994, when he was 44. That is when he registered a gravel corporation named Arenera de Venezuela, CA. That is Arevenca for limited.

One of González’s very first dubious projects was when he told persons he would build the San Francisco Javier port elaborate on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. Courtroom documents present that he claimed it would include 800 warehouses, a 5-star resort, a shopping mall, and a heliport. Building would value $1 billion. A contractor started out to obvious land, but the condition halted work for absence of permits. The contractor has been in court due to the fact 2001, trying to gather on its bill.

Huge dreams stymied, González seems to have gone for compact-time cheats. In 2004, an American sued to get better two Venezuelan ranches he experienced marketed González just after payment never arrived. A helicopter pilot, a renovation contractor, and a law firm all sued González for unpaid bills.

Then, out of nowhere, González was contacting Arevenca an oil enterprise. In 2006, González allegedly made himself out to be an agent for Venezuela’s condition oil agency and bought cargoes of diesel to a Nigerian business.

Most legit oil trades are like shopping for a home—two sides agree on a value. The customer puts the money in a type of escrow and sends out inspectors. After the oil is delivered, the funds moves. A purchaser who wires hard cash up front to a new vendor is inquiring for complications.

Like Díaz, which is what the Nigerians did. Like him, they had rationale to have faith in: They would later assert that the Venezuelan embassy alone instructed them to get the job done with Arevenca. As with Díaz, the oil by no means arrived. The Nigerians sued for $600 million in New York but under no circumstances served Arevenca. The other defendant, Venezuela’s condition oil enterprise, obtained the circumstance dismissed in August.

Then, in 2009, González went to the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire and promised to establish the world’s major oil refinery on the Ivorian coastline. Arevenca’s shady file was nevertheless buried in court paperwork. Unsuspecting area reporters included the information. World fiscal outlets Bloomberg and Economist Intelligence Device ran with the tale. The news coverage, portraying Arevenca as a reputable business, gave the firm an aura of respectability.

González has under no circumstances been convicted, nevertheless he is dealing with legal costs in Spain more than the Betteroads affair. But the regulation is a weak counterweight to his revenue prowess.

Like smaller-time email scammers offering a Nigerian royal fortune, González dazzles his marks with claims of prosperity. Make this small offer now and get a big payoff down the street. He pursues all those who want some thing. Maybe he can offer it himself, or probably they are impressed by the politicians González eagerly poses with in photos. He adds legitimacy with an impression of panache: fancy cars and trucks, a modern web site, favorable press. He’ll supply lender tips if pressed, but that’s seldom required. And when it is, these suggestions may possibly be fake.

Suhey Villadiego fell for it. When González confirmed up on the Caribbean island of Curaçao in 2009, she was hired to get the job done as a type of unpaid assistant. She was by now in the brokerage activity herself and desired to find out from González’s procedures: She mentioned she had beforehand finished oil bargains involving off-current market Venezuelan crude. To go massive-time, she essential a line of credit score so she could invest in and promote cargoes of fuel—or at the very least fake to.

As González negotiated to acquire an aged, filthy oil refinery from the Curaçaoan government, he acquired his 22-year-old girlfriend a Cartier observe. But when it was time to pay for the refinery, he supplied only a pretend letter of credit, Villadiego informed me in an interview previous calendar year. Yet another time, he sought to withdraw a $200 million false wire transfer from a Curaçaoan lender. The lender professionals didn’t fall for the pressure, she mentioned.

Villadiego was not so lucky. She loaned Arevenca $70,000 from promoting her household so they would get her that line of credit rating.

“I begun supplying them cash in January and gave far more in March,” Villadiego reported. “I started off inquiring for my revenue again in October. I was hysterical in November. This was cash for my kids.” She never ever noticed her income once more. Police informed her to sue Arevenca, but she no for a longer time experienced the funds for a law firm. Villadiego was scammed—but it was her sense of hope that created her a mark.

Marcos Da Silva, the founder of Madasi, recollects how González gave an effect of excellent prosperity and respectability. To begin, González flew Da Silva and his companion, Lausell, to the Arevenca places of work in Aruba on a non-public jet.

Arevenca took up the 2nd floor of one of the a lot more distinguished buildings together the waterfront of Aruba’s money, Oranjestad. A firm flag fluttered out entrance, and the business name was fastened to the salmon-colored facade. The interior was embellished in handsome furniture. For Lausell and Da Silva, the scene imparted assurance. They experienced ambled into joker-broker headquarters, but pictures display them grinning like they experienced hit the jackpot.

“He’s a playboy,” Da Silva mentioned, describing to me Gonzalez’s white, short-sleeve shirt, open up at the neck, and white linen pants. He presided more than a glass-topped convention table, outlining how issues would be accomplished. “You appear at him, you see a large magnate guy. You know the person from Virgin? Branson? You see him, he’s like that.”

Framed pictures decorated the walls, Da Silva said—González in a Saudi headdress, González with Suriname’s president, Dési Bouterse.

“Man, I believed,” Da Silva explained. “I thought in him. Let’s be distinct. I considered he had products, just like the Díazes believed, and everyone believed.”