The nephews of the imprisoned Venezuelan president’s wife are released in exchange for seven American prisoners

Venezuela on Saturday released seven imprisoned Americans in exchange for the release of two nephews of President Nicolas Maduro’s wife. The two Venezuelans were imprisoned in the United States for drug smuggling. Franqui Flores and Efrain Campo, Cilia Flores’ nephews, were clemencyed by Joe Biden to facilitate the exchange.

Among the Americans released were five oil managers who had been held for nearly five years, a former US Marine and a Florida man.

The Biden administration has indicated its willingness to work with the regime of socialist dictator Maduro. In March, reports surfaced that Biden had sent a delegation to Venezuela for talks with the regime.

Shortly after the visit, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated that importing Venezuelan oil was “not an active conversation at this time.”

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The prisoner exchange may be an attempt by the Biden administration to promote the possibility of buying oil from Maduro’s brutal communist regime rather than drilling for more oil here at home.

CBS News reports:

Those released include five employees of Houston-based Citgo — Tomio Fadel, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo and Jose Pereira — who were lured to Venezuela before Thanksgiving in 2017 for a meeting at the state’s parent company headquarters. – The giant oil company PDVSA. Once there, they were led by masked security agents who stormed a conference hall in Caracas.

The men were convicted of embezzlement in 2020 in a trial marred by delays and irregularities and sentenced to between eight and 13 years in prison over an unfulfilled offer to refinance billions in oil company bonds.

Also released Matthew Heatha former U.S. Marine Corps corporal from Tennessee who was arrested in 2020 at a checkpoint in Venezuela on what the State Department called “deceptive” weapons charges, and Florida man, Usman Khan, who was arrested in January.

from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/the-nephews-of-the-imprisoned-venezuelan-presidents-wife-are-released-in-exchange-for-seven-american-prisoners/