Eligio Cedeño

Eligio Cedeño (born December 1, 1964 in Caracas , Venezuela ) was a bank manager of the CEDEL group in Venezuela until he fled to the USA .

In 2007 he was accused of criminal currency transfers by the authorities in his home country. He is said to have illegally imported around US $ 27 million, which he tried to disguise with an alleged purchase of computers, but which never reached Venezuela.

In the Latin American press, the events were occasionally reported under the heading "Microstar affair", although the legal assessment is still controversial today. While his lawyers, particularly the internationally active Robert Amsterdam, launched a press campaign aimed at portraying Cedeno as a political prisoner, the Venezuelan government advocated a long prison term. The background seems to be the high inflation in Venezuela, as a result of which there was a currency reform in December 2009. When evaluating the causes of the currency difficulties, a possible involvement in possibly illegal dollar transfers by Eligio Cedeno was examined. As no trial had been initiated after 630 days in prison, he was released in December 2009 by a judge who decided whether or not to continue his detention. He then left Venezuela and now lives in the USA.

The events surrounding Eligio Cedeno must be viewed against the background of the political changes in Latin America. In Venezuela, as in seven other South American countries, socialist governments have been established in recent years that, in contrast to more recent history in Latin America, have not yet been overthrown by a right-wing coup. The Hugo Chávez government in Venezuela, which survived a coup attempt in 2003, pursues a policy of distancing itself from the USA while at the same time bringing the socialist Latin American states closer together.