The financial architecture that allowed Nicolas Maduro’s regime to support the Iranian state ecosystem for years was not based solely on Venezuelan oil. According to documents provided to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the White House by former intelligence officials … and senior Chavista officials, to whom ABC had access, China appears to be the great provider of liquidity which, once absorbed by the Venezuelan financial apparatus, ended up being integrated into the circuits which benefited Iran. According to these files, this would not be directly, but through a triangulation mechanism intended to dilute financial leads and circumvent international controls.
For American analysts cited in the report, China’s role is particularly sensitive because it introduces a great power into an architecture designed to erode the international sanctions regime. Although the document does not attribute direct control to Beijing over the final destination of the funds, it highlights that the design of the Sino-Venezuelan Fund (FCCV) and the absence of effective supervision mechanisms facilitated this diversion. Venezuela, they conclude, acted as a conscious intermediary.
The report states that this model anticipates similar patterns observed in direct relations between China and Iran, based on swap oil for works and infrastructure, with payments routed outside of the traditional financial system. In this sense, the Venezuelan experience would have served as the first laboratory for a parallel financial network which is now openly worrying Washington under the presidency of Donald Trump.
For the US Attorney’s Office, the document is part of ongoing investigations into expanded charges against members of the Suns cartel and other senior officials of the Venezuelan regime. The inclusion of the Chinese component adds an international dimension which reinforces the strategic nature of the affair and explains, according to the sources consulted, the hardening of political, judicial and military pressure from the United States on the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro, who could soon face an increase in accusations.
Infrastructure and development
The axis of this system is the Sino-Venezuelan Fund, created to channel loans from Beijing intended, on paper, for infrastructure and development projects in Venezuela and Argentina. The report claims that these resources, once entering the financial framework of the Venezuelan state, were mixed with oil revenues and redistributed through opaque funds, state-owned companies and binational trusts, some of which ended up financing projects, payments and structures linked to the Iranian regime.
By 2010, according to the document, the FCCV had reached an approximate volume of $12 billion, with more than $9.3 billion already disbursed in 124 projects. It is at this moment that the authors of the report locate the turning point: part of these resources would have been diverted towards industrial and financial programs which, although formally conceived as cooperation between the countries of the so-called global south, has actually benefited Iranian public companies and structures linked to its strategic apparatus.
In 2010, according to the document, the FCCV had reached an approximate volume of 12 billion dollars, of which more than 9.3 billion had already been disbursed in 124 projects.
China, origin of money
The report reviewed by ABC does not present China as Iran’s ideological partner in Venezuela, but as the origin of the money that made the maneuver possible. In summary: Beijing lent funds to Caracas; Caracas absorbed them into its financial system; and, from there, part was redirected to projects with Iranian participation, using Venezuela as a redirection platform. This is the fundamental reasoning of the accusation, with the evidence available to the North American authorities: without the Chinese financial cushion, the volume and duration of the project would not have been viable.
Fonden’s role is central in this process. This is the National Development Fund, which is described as a real “distribution box” without parliamentary control, capable of mixing FCCV resources, oil revenues, debt issues and other sources. Once inside Fonden, the document claims, the money lost traceability. This total opacity allowed discretionary allocations to industrial, agricultural or energy projects which served as a front for subsequent transfers.
Among these projects, the report highlights the so-called “socialist factories” program, designed as a tripartite initiative with Argentina and Iran. According to the documents, a subgroup of at least 21 factories required more than a billion bolivars for civil works and equipment. The financing was articulated from Venezuela, with resources from Fonden and the Sino-Venezuelan Fund itself. Argentine companies took charge of part of the civil works, while Iranian partners provided the technology and equipment. The result, says the report submitted to Washington, was that The factories were never built or remained unfinished, but the funds have been disbursed.
Among these projects, the report highlights the so-called “socialist factories” program, designed as a tripartite initiative with Argentina and Iran.
This pattern is repeated in other industrial projects cited by the document. Plastic factories, food processing plants, petrochemical facilities, and defense projects appear to be financed with mixed resources from the FCCV and Venezuelan funds. In several cases, the authors highlight the absence of solid evidence of effective execution, despite payments made. The profits, they conclude, were transferred to Iranian suppliers. or binational structures which made it possible to capture value with little public visibility.
The report also identifies specific Iranian state-owned companies that received payments through this system, including Petropars and Sadra. These payments, he explains, were processed within the framework of industrial or oil contracts managed by PDVSA and Bandes, sometimes via accounts and mechanisms external to the SWIFT banking system, intended to increase opacity and reduce the tracing capacity of international authorities.
High-risk financial routes
Added to this circuit are financial routes considered high risk. The document mentions the use of banks and courts as Uruguay, Panama, Dubai and Hong Kongwhich would have served to triangulate transfers and fragment the flow of money. The combination of Chinese funds, Venezuelan oil revenues and parallel financial structures created, according to the report, a network complex enough to evade the controls associated with sanctions against Iran for years.
Quantification is one of the key elements. The report does not argue that all of the $7,821 million in Venezuelan support for the Iranian ecosystem comes from China. On the contrary, he distinguishes clearly. It allocates some $4.689 million to projects and funds explicitly linked to Iran, such as energy, petrochemicals and binational funds. To this figure, he adds a conservative estimate of an additional $3.132 million from the indirect diversion of resources from the China-Venezuela Fund. It is this second block that supports the new line of research.
In other words, according to the document, at least $3 billion of Sino-Venezuelan origin would have been integrated into the financial architecture that allowed Tehran to support its economy despite sanctions and to finance strategic activities. This is not a generic accusation, but rather a consolidated estimate prepared from identified projects, financial flows and testimonies from former Venezuelan officials who are now cooperating with American justice.
The report also links this mechanism to the military-technical cooperation agreements signed by Venezuela with several countries, including China and Iran. In internal documents from 2008 and later, Fonden appears as an instrument for finance projects classified as strategic, without public disclosure or external audit. This coincidence reinforces the thesis that the fund functioned as a central node of a financial foreign policy, and not as a simple development tool, as was intended when it was launched.
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