“This was a real success for our cooperation with Bulgaria between American law enforcement agencies and Bulgarian law enforcement agencies. This is one of the major threats we are facing in the world today – illicit money transfers evading international law, evading national laws. In this case we have said very clearly that we are determined to prevent the illegal regime in Venezuela from stealing the wealth of the Venezuelan people and that’s what this is – this is money from the state oil company, which is money from Venezuelan natural resources in a country where people are now starving. We don’t know the reason- we don’t know why tens of millions, at a minimum, of dollars were transferred to Bulgaria from Venezuela- but it’s almost certain that the objectives were not pure and were not good. There’s also no question it was not done in accordance with Venezuelan law, Bulgarian law, international law. So our law enforcement agencies have great cooperation and in this case we worked very quickly, when we got the information, to share it with Bulgaria. We are determined to work with our partners in the EU and around the world to help prevent this kind of thing- to help prevent the people of Venezuela from being denied their future, and to help put pressure to achieve a peaceful and democratic outcome in Venezuela. – U.S. Ambassador Eric Rubin
