Alejandro Betancourt leads US-Venezuela oil deal amid corruption allegations

Investigations in five countries have followed Betancourt’s rise

A BBC News profile published Wednesday examines Alejandro Betancourt López, the 46-year-old Venezuelan businessman who heads North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), the Barbados-registered firm overseeing production and sale of 17 oil fields containing roughly 65 billion barrels of crude under a deal President Donald Trump has called “the biggest in history.”

Born in Caracas in February 1980 and a graduate of Suffolk University in Boston, Betancourt has built an estimated $2.6 billion fortune across a network of about 50 companies in 16 countries, according to Transparency Venezuela. His business career traces back to connections he made at the Instituto Cumbres de Caracas, a private religious school where he befriended Javier Alvarado Pardi, the son of a man who would later serve as president of Electricidad de Caracas, vice-minister of energy, and an executive at the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

The profile lands as the Trump administration moves to operationalize what the president has called “the biggest” oil deal in history. US officials have said the arrangement gives Washington 55% control of a joint venture covering oil fields containing roughly 65 billion barrels of crude.

Around 2009, amid an electricity crisis in Venezuela, Derwick Associates — the engineering firm Betancourt founded with a cousin — received 12 government contracts awarded without bidding, totaling $5 billion, the BBC reported, citing journalist Alek Boyd, who has tracked Betancourt since 2011. He and other young entrepreneurs of that era were dubbed “bolichicos,” a slang portmanteau combining “Bolivarian” — referring to Hugo Chávez’s socialist revolution — and “chico,” meaning boy. Betancourt’s US lawyer, Jon Sale, told BBC News Mundo that the label is a media-coined term describing “a group of young people whose only commonality is their success.”

Anti-corruption organizations have alleged that several Derwick projects were either unfinished or carried out incorrectly. A 2018 report by Transparency Venezuela estimated that 11 of the projects awarded to Derwick should have cost $2.1 billion; if accurate, that would suggest potential overpayment of 138%. Betancourt’s legal team has previously rejected such accusations as politically motivated smears. Derwick has claimed to have completed all of its electrification projects.

Following the electricity contracts, Venezuelan authorities permitted Derwick to venture into the oil industry. Betancourt’s business activities subsequently expanded internationally: in the mid-2010s he acquired a majority stake in the Spanish sunglasses company Hawkers, becoming its president in 2016, and he acquired banking entities in Switzerland and Africa.

His legal troubles, however, continued. In 2013, former US ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich filed an American lawsuit alleging that Betancourt and two associates paid Venezuelan public officials in exchange for contracts; the suit was dismissed five years later. In recent years, judicial authorities in Spain, Switzerland, Andorra, and the United States have opened investigations against Betancourt and other bolichicos for alleged corruption schemes related to PDVSA, the BBC reported. He has not been charged and has denied wrongdoing.

In 2025, Betancourt was detained twice by British police in London, where he had settled. Spanish authorities subsequently raided Alamín Castle, a palatial estate he owned in the province of Toledo. Both actions were reportedly linked to a Swiss public prosecutor’s investigation into alleged money laundering. Sale told the BBC that Betancourt was being targeted because of associations with other Venezuelan entrepreneurs: “This is a group of very successful young entrepreneurs… some have broken the law and others haven’t, but they’ve all been lumped together.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview with Venezuelan journalist Sergio Novelli, offered three reasons for selecting Betancourt. “He has a track record of being able to produce oil,” Rubio said first. Some experts have estimated that NABEP currently produces around 180,000 barrels per day, second only to Chevron’s more than 200,000, though others question those figures. Rubio also noted that Betancourt was not being investigated in the US at the time, and said Betancourt “is an individual who strongly supported the opposition.”

Unlike other businessmen who prospered under Chávez, Betancourt reportedly did not identify ideologically with the late president’s movement. When political winds shifted, he forged a relationship with opposition leader Juan Guaidó during Trump’s first term, the BBC reported. Those contacts helped him build ties with US officials including former Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, according to Boyd.

After Betancourt was involved in a failed 2019 attempt to oust Nicolás Maduro, Maduro removed him from the oil business and forced him to live between Madrid and London. According to The Washington Post, US authorities later urged Switzerland to drop its extradition request; a London court lifted Betancourt’s travel ban in May 2025 after Swiss authorities did not provide evidence requested by English judges. Sale acknowledged the ruling does not necessarily end the Swiss investigations.

According to Axios, in the first minutes after the January 3 military operation that removed Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Betancourt spoke with then-Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez and persuaded her to speak with Rubio. His lawyer confirmed the account, telling the BBC: “He acted as an intermediary. He had nothing to do with Maduro’s departure, but since he had everyone’s trust, he became an intermediary.” Rodríguez, now interim president of Venezuela, defended Betancourt on Wednesday, saying he has no pending cases in Venezuela or the United States.

For Boyd, the journalist who has tracked Betancourt for more than a decade, the pattern is clear: “He’s very skillful. He always manages to be where he needs to be to avoid problems and make money.”

MSI previously reported on Trump’s announcement of the deal and on NABEP’s drilling plans that established the operational context for Betancourt’s central role.