MALETERO SE VA

A businessman who prosecutors say flew to Argentina with a suitcase full of Venezuelan government cash testified in Miami he was told a second suitcase holding $4.2 million was aboard the plane. Prosecutors also presented evidence suggesting money was frequently sent from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's government to Argentine officials. Prosecutors have said the first suitcase, which was seized, held nearly $800,000 in cash for the campaign of Argentine President Cristina Fernández. Both she and Chávez vehemently deny the accusation as an attempt to smear them for political reasons. Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a key witness in the trial of a man charged with acting as an illegal Venezuelan agent, said that he was unaware the suitcase he carried contained the money. Also said that after the first suitcase was seized from him at the airport in Buenos Aires, he met with Diego Uzcategui, then an executive in Argentina for the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA. He said Uzcategui asked him: ``Well Alex, what about the rest of the money? There was another suitcase with $4.2 million.'' Antonini, a dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen, was testifying against Franklin Duran, a Venezuelan businessmen who is one of five accused of acting illegally as Venezuelan government agents in a scheme to conceal the source of the confiscated cash. Three others have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors as witnesses; one remains at large and is thought to be in Venezuela.
Chávez last week called the trial ''a trash operation'' planned by the United States, and called Antonini a ''traitor'' protected by U.S. authorities. ''That criminal Antonini, I wish they'd send him to me here so he could tell me to my face who those dollars were from''. ``There's an order out for his capture here.'' Antonini left Argentina after the cash was seized and decided to cooperate with the FBI, recording conversations in Miami with the Venezuelans who allegedly pressured him to keep quiet.
Prosecutors presented transcripts of recorded conversations as evidence, including one with Duran in which Antonini said Uzcategui told him it was not the first time Venezuela had sent money to Argentina. Uzcategui ''told me in the hotel that he had taken many of those trips and so had the minister'' of energy, Rafael Ramírez. Another witness, Moises Maionica, has testified that he was hired by the Venezuelan government so that Antonini would not reveal the origin of the money. He said the state oil company was going to pay him $400,000 for his work. He said he also met with Venezuelan intelligence director Gen. Henry Rangel Silva to discuss the case, and that Rangel had been appointed by Chávez to take over handling of the scandal.


Antonini, who lives in South Florida, said he was invited to board the flight from Caracas to Buenos Aires on the plane chartered by the Argentine government. He said he noticed the suitcase had been left behind and picked it up to take it through customs, even though he did not know it contained the cash.


''I was asked by customs what was in my bag. I opened it and found close to $800,000. It wasn't my bag,'' Antonini said. He said he had not seen the money before. However, he said he declared to customs that the money was his because ``I thought it was the fastest way to get out of the airport.'' Antonini said Rafael Reiter, chief of Ramírez's security detail, loaded suitcases onto the flight in Caracas.