By Bruno Sgarzini – Oct 19, 2026In any country in the world, it would be considered a handout or a bribe, but in the United States, the laws regulating lobbying consider it legal. If we look at the history, it is quite evident: after January 3, Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, threatened Delcy Rodríguez with more bombings if she did not do what the Trump administration wanted, and appointed Mauricio Claver-Carone, former director for Latin America of the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, as an intermediary.From that moment on, Claver-Carone became the “unrecognized viceroy in Venezuela.” Those familiar with the day-to-day operations of the Venezuelan government say that a US team immediately set up office in Caracas and calls with Claver-Carone became more than frequent.Among many of the actions taken by the “unrecognized viceroy” are the extradition of Alex Saab to the United States, the appointment of the firm Centerview Partners as an advisor to the Venezuelan government to restructure its external debt, and the 25-year mega oil deal announced by the United States and Venezuela for North American Blue Energy Partners to take over 17 oil fields in exchange for giving the Pentagon a shareholding and 25% of its production at cost. Its owner, Alejandro Betancourt, is a shadowy businessman who acted as an intermediary between Delcy Rodríguez and Marco Rubio before Maduro’s kidnapping.A bigger scandal has gone unnoticed by most media outlets: the awarding of several contracts in Venezuela to two firms, Mercuria Energy and Heeney Capital, after a $330,000 payment to the lobbying firm Continental Strategy, close to Rubio and, therefore, Claver-Carone. If the reasoning were linear, as the one Rubio himself applies against progressive figures, this money was a way to launder a gift through third parties.However, because the work of lobbying firms is protected by US law, what in other countries would be at the very least a conflict of interest is legal in the United States. The case shows in full dimension one of the bribery structures that operate around oil and mining concessions in Venezuela: the one directly linked to the US Secretary of State. Above all, because Rubio controls two key levers of policy on Venezuela: the State Department’s recommendations to ease permits to operate in Venezuela from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the influence over Delcy Rodríguez through direct contact.To recap and ensure that the reader does not get lost in these intricacies: Continental Strategy was founded by Carlos Trujillo, appointed as the United States ambassador to the Organization of American States on Rubio’s recommendation in 2018. Trujillo is the son of Cuban-American exiles and the architect of much of Trump’s campaign aimed at Latino voters in the last presidential election. In many political circles in Washington, he came to be known in 2019 as “the little Marco Rubio” due to his mimicry of the current secretary of State.Trujillo’s firm employs people close to the Trump administration, such as Katie Wiles, the daughter of the White House Chief of Staff, and former chief of staff for Rubio in the Senate, Alberto Martínez. Another key lobbyist is John Barsa, who served as acting administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) during the first Trump administration.According to public records, Mercuria Energy and Heeney Capital approached this lobbying firm between December 19, 2025, and June 30, 2026. In total, Mercuria Energy, one of the largest energy and commodity trading companies in the world, paid $330,000 to Continental Strategy for “issues related to licensing processes, energy markets, and oil and mineral development projects,” according to one of the reports submitted to US authorities in the first quarter of the year. Among the lobbyists hired for these tasks, Trujillo himself and Martínez, Marco Rubio’s former chief of staff, appear in the first report submitted on December 19, 2025.Thanks to these payments, the two companies have secured a series of lucrative joint contracts with the Venezuelan government. After the initial payment of $165,000, on May 1, they signed a memorandum of understanding with the Venezuelan government, sponsored by the White House, to sell Venezuelan raw materials, such as gold, in international markets, with an estimated profit of $2.2 billion, according to a statement from Mercuria Energy.The signing of the memorandum was attended by a US delegation led by Jarrod Agen, executive director of the National Energy Control Council. As part of this agreement, the two companies have also acquired 15,000 metric tons of aluminum ingots from the Venezuelan state-owned company Venalum. According to Venezuelan investigative journalist Victor Majano, the deal is clear: the conglomerate buys the aluminum at a 5-10% discount and then sells it for more than its value in the US Midwest.Now Mercuria and Heeney Capital are in talks to take over the privatization of Venalum, which operates at 20% capacity, in exchange for injecting billions of dollars to restore its production. Among its competitors is the mining and commodities giant Glencore.The business, of course, does not stop here: both companies secured the 30-year concession for the El Chocó gold mine, located in El Callao, one of Venezuela’s main gold-producing areas. The acquisition took place after the Venezuelan government approved a mining law allowing the transfer of mining deposits to private entities without state participation, and the US Department of the Treasury issued a license relaxing conditions for private capital to operate in the sector. This happened after Mercuria Energy’s latest payment to Continental Strategy for advising on “issues related to energy commodities and their marketing, oil, and gas development.”These two companies are not the only ones that have taken advantage of this covert bribery structure to do business in Venezuela. The Turkish energy company Çan2 Termik AŞ hired the lobbying firm owned by Trujillo, the “little Marco Rubio,” for $35,000 before signing a contract with the Venezuelan state-owned PDVSA to take control of 10 oil fields in the CEMA block with a production capacity of 10,000 barrels per day.Another company that wants to achieve the same is Gran Tierra Energy, which paid almost $300,000 to Continental in the second quarter to obtain “business opportunities in oil and gas in Venezuela.” The firm has just sold its stakes in energy projects in Ecuador and Colombia for $1.3 billion.Jorge Rodríguez Says Venezuela Controls All Oil Revenues, Dismisses Claims of Foreign ManagementAmong the clients of Trujillo’s firm, there is Integra Capital, owned by Argentinian businessman José Luis Manzano, former Minister of the Interior under Carlos Menem and a shareholder in several Argentinian energy companies, such as Edenor and MetroGas; mining companies, such as Integra Uranium; and media outlets, such as the América channel in Argentina. Integra paid an undisclosed amount for Trujillo’s firm to lobby on “US policy for Venezuela, including issues affecting the protection of private property, investments, and commercial assets.”Manzano’s holding company is a shareholder in Venezuela through his company Integra Oil & Gas, in the oil company Lagopetrol, in Lake Maracaibo, together with the Venezuelan Oil Corporation. It is possible that Manzano is considering whether he can acquire a larger share of the Venezuelan state-owned company’s stock. For this task, he has among his lobbyists John Barsa, a former Green Beret and interim administrator of the USAID during Trump’s first term, and Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, created by oil businessman David Rockefeller in 1963.The list of clients of this covert bribery scheme is long and includes other companies, such as Helmerich & Payne, a US oil and gas drilling company. So far this year, it has allocated $75,000 to lobbying activities related to “energy security and the United States’ trade commitment/compliance in Venezuela.” Fifteen years ago, Hugo Chávez ordered the expropriation of 11 of the company’s drilling rigs because it had kept them “idle,” as a result of a dispute over a million-dollar state debt. It is possible that he is now seeking some form of compensation for that dispute.Apparently, everything is fair game for this covert bribery structure surrounding Rubio, which sucks up every natural resource, failing state-owned company, or unused Venezuelan capital, like a true piranha that cannibalizes the remains of its prey. (Diario Red)Translation: Orinoco TribuneOT/SC/SF