By Hedelberto L\u00f3pez Blanch* \/ Special Collaboration for Resumen Latinoamericano.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once again, the pathological liar Marco Rubio lies. This time, before a Miami court that is trying his close friend and former congressman, David Rivera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A report from the Spanish news agency EFE, published by El Nuevo Herald, stated that Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed in a Miami court that he was unaware of an alleged multimillion-dollar contract that his close friend David Rivera supposedly made in 2017 to bring the Venezuelan government of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro closer to the United States and facilitate a peaceful transfer of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubio appeared as a witness for the prosecution at Rivera\u2019s hearing. Years ago, the two men bought a house in Tallahassee, Florida, and lived together when they were both state legislators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rivera, along with Esther Nuhfer (who worked for Rubio), is facing trial in South Florida on corruption charges for allegedly misappropriating millions of dollars in a murky scheme to influence the U.S. administration to ease sanctions against the Maduro government during Donald Trump\u2019s first term (2017-2021), when Rubio was a senator in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For approximately three hours, the current Secretary of State was questioned by both the prosecution and the lawyers for Rivera and Nuhfer. He maintained that he was unaware that Rivera had a $50 million consulting contract with a U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company, for the aforementioned purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, according to the EFE report, Rubio acknowledged that in July 2017 he held two meetings with Rivera in which the former legislator presented him with a plan that, through businessman Ra\u00fal Gorr\u00edn\u2014owner of Globovisi\u00f3n and alleged intermediary with the Maduro government\u2014sought to deliver a letter from the then-Venezuelan president to Trump proposing the start of a peaceful transition process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubio said that the second meeting, which Gorr\u00edn attended at a Washington hotel, was \u201ca waste of time\u201d because there was no letter of commitment from Maduro, which he was supposedly going to deliver to Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rivera has faced countless trials on charges of corruption, money laundering, and illicit dealings, but in the end, as is always the case in Miami, he has been acquitted due to his connections with high-ranking political figures in Miami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His close relationship with Rubio led him to buy a three-bedroom house in Tallahassee, which became a symbol of a politically problematic friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ties between Rubio and Rivera date back to 1992, when they volunteered for the campaign of Lincoln D\u00edaz-Balart, who was running for a district in Miami-Dade County. This was during the heyday of the Cuban counterrevolutionary industry in Florida, and thanks to his connection with the D\u00edaz-Balart brothers, Rivera was able to work for the Cuban Broadcasting Office (Radio Mart\u00ed) and as a USAID contractor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the South Florida program C\u00f3digoAbierto360\u00b0, by the time Marco Rubio was elected state representative, he and Esther Nuhfer were already known as the \u201cGolden Duo.\u201d Rivera, in particular, earned the nickname \u201cThe Executioner\u201d for carrying out Rubio\u2019s orders and also \u201cDavid La Trampa\u201d (David the Trap).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 29, 2025, Venezuela News reported that Alejandro Ter\u00e1n, director of the Latin American Association of Petroleum Entrepreneurs in Texas, claimed that, as a senator, Marco Rubio received corrupt money from the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Foundation of CITGO, which was managed by Juan Guaid\u00f3. Ter\u00e1n also accused Rubio of lobbying for ExxonMobil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Press reports from 2022 indicate that Rivera and Nuhfer were accused of using their access to the corrupt Florida senator and other elected officials to improve Venezuela\u2019s standing with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rivera signed a secret consulting contract with CITGO, the subsidiary of Venezuela\u2019s state-owned oil company PDVSA USA, for $50 million. The federal indictment alleged that he received more than $13 million in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The indictment stated that Rivera and Nuhfer arranged two meetings with Rubio to discuss Venezuela. According to press reports, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) received information from a source at CITGO linking Marco Rubio and his friend, former Congressman Rivera, to acts of corruption associated with the corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After The New York Times published information in May 2020 about CITGO\u2019s lawsuit against David Rivera\u2019s firm, Interamerican Consulting Inc., for breach of contract related to lobbying services, it became public knowledge that the FBI and the Department of Justice were investigating both men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From October 2020 to April 2021, a whistleblower who requested to enter the federal witness protection program provided information via email to Christopher J. Woehr, Little Duane and Claudia Mulvey (FDLE) and George Stephan (Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigations for the Department of the Treasury) regarding irregular transaction amounts and alleged money laundering from CITGO, through Luisa Palacios (a member of its board of directors), to banks in Switzerland, Austria, Hong Kong, and Mexico, and to accounts belonging to David Rivera, Diana Rivera McKenzie (David\u2019s sister), and Esther Nuhfer (linked to Rubio) at Chase Bank in Miami-Dade County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between 2017 and 2020, most of the transfers were made to bank accounts belonging to Viviana Bovo, who used her name to cover for her boss, Marco Rubio, then a highly influential Florida senator, who suffered a humiliating defeat to Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the IRS and Florida FDLE source, Rubio had agreed with Rivera to lobby to obstruct a Justice Department investigation into CITGO for potential violations including money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and other crimes under the RICO Act and other federal laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The informant said he witnessed David Rivera, while at CITGO headquarters in Houston, Texas, communicating constantly with Senator Rubio and suggested an investigation of his cell phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also asserted that Gina Coon, the company\u2019s treasurer, possessed documents, emails, WhatsApp messages, and audio recordings that would confirm the fraudulent transactions between Rivera, Rubio, and their associates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now Marco Rubio appears as an \u201cangel\u201d in the trial against Rivera, but his Pinocchio-like, mythomaniac nose will continue to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IMAGE CREDIT: Ad\u00e1n Iglesias Toledo<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(*) Hedelberto L\u00f3pez Blanch is a renowned Cuban journalist. He writes for the newspaper Juventud Rebelde and the weekly Opciones. He is the author of \u201cCuban Emigration to the United States,\u201d \u201cSecret Stories of Cuban Doctors in Africa,\u201d and \u201cMiami, Dirty Money,\u201d among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SPECIAL THANKS TO THE AUTHOR: Hedelberto L\u00f3pez Blanch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n [ SOURCE: RESUMEN LATINOAMERICANO Y DEL TERCER MUNDO CUBA \/ EN RESUMEN ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Hedelberto López Blanch* \/ Special Collaboration for Resumen Latinoamericano. Once again, the pathological liar Marco Rubio lies. This time, before a Miami court that is trying his close friend… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[42],"class_list":["post-10635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"authors":[{"term_id":42,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"radio-habana-cuba","display_name":"Radio Habana Cuba","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10637,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10635\/revisions\/10637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10635"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=10635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}