Venezuela sentences six Americans to prison

A Venezuelan judge in the capital city of Caracas on Thursday found the American oil executives detained since 2017 guilty of corruption. Five of the men received sentences of eight years and ten months, while a sixth man received a 13-year sentence. The men worked for Houston-based Citgo refining company, owned by Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA oil company.

Why were they arrested? The charges relate to a proposal to refinance about $4 billion worth of Citgo bonds that was never executed. In Nov. 2017, the executives — five of whom are naturalized U.S. citizens and one a legal resident — received a call from PDVSA to attend a budget meeting in Caracas. They arrived at the headquarters, where military intelligence officials detained them. Their arrest followed worsening relations between the United States and embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Marvin Olasky’s feature on how Venezuelan refugees in Florida describe socialism’s latest failure.