DISINFO: Juan Guaidó involved in the big corruption scheme known as ‘Operation Green Suitcase’
SUMMARY
Venezuela’s National Assembly decided to suspend several opposition lawmakers, allegedly involved in receiving bribes to whitewash and save businessmen from economic sanctions imposed by the US. As a consequence of these accusations, those opposition lawmakers even pointed at Juan Guaidó.
RESPONSE
This is a deliberate distortion of facts in order to imply that opposition leader Juan Guaidó is actually involved in the denounced corruption case. Through half-truths, the use of out-of-context criticism against Guaidó by other opposition figures and a reference to a previous scandal of misuse of humanitarian funds by members of his party, the story is conveniently doctored to give the impression that the lawmakers involved in this case were pointing to Guaidó himself at the top of the scheme. The lawmakers allegedly involved in the so-called ‘Operation Green Suitcase’ were accused of receiving bribes in exchange for writing letters of support for a Colombian national, Carlos Lizcano, despite evidence of his ties to Alex Saab, another Colombian man who is under U.S. sanctions for corruption linked to a state-backed food distribution programme. The scandal was first reported by pro-opposition site Armando.info and immediately denounced by Guaidó himself and top members of his party. Several international media reported on this scandal as a setback for Guaidó that undermines his leadership of the opposition movement, but no serious observer suggested that he is in any way implicated in the corruption scheme. This is part of a recurrent Russian narrative to discredit Juan Guaidó and the overall Venezuelan opposition movement, portraying him as a far-right US stooge, as a US creation or as part of a Masonic-Jesuit conspiracy. You can find many other examples of Kremlin-led disinformation about Venezuela in our database, such as the alleged use of humanitarian aids to supply weapons to the opposition, a supposed hybrid war against Nicolás Maduro’s government, false reports on an imminent US military intervention against Caracas or the training of Venezuelan exiles in Guyana to carry out terrorist acts in their home country, or the alleged promotion of separatism in oil-rich regions in northern Venezuela.