Venezuela Overhauls National Crypto Department

In a proclamation published on March 17, Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, ordered the reform of the National Superintendency of Crypto Assets.

A new board of directors will oversee the restructuring, led by Anabel Pereira Fernández, a lawyer who formerly served as president of the Fondo de Garantia de Depositos y Protección Bancaria, Venezuela’s equivalent of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Héctor Andrés Obregón Pérez, Luis Alberto Pérez González, and Julio César Mora Sánchez are among the other directors.

The directive says the board will plan the future steps for the crypto section, known as Sunacrip in Spanish, without providing any other specifics or explicit reasons for the reorganization. According to Maduro’s administration, the decision is designed to safeguard civilians from the ill consequences of economic sanctions, among other things.

Joselit Ramirez, who has overseen the department since its formation in 2018, is no longer on the board of directors. According to Venezuelan media, Ramirez was arrested on March 17 on corruption charges. Cointelegraph was unable to validate the facts at the time of publishing. Ramirez was in charge of crypto tax legislation as well as the country’s cryptocurrency Petro.

Ramirez was added to the United States’ Most Wanted List in June 2020. The Homeland Security Investigations division of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Petro’s boss.

Authorities claimed at the time that Ramirez had “strong political, social, and economic ties” to suspected drug lords such as Tareck El Aissami, Venezuela’s former vice president.

Ramirez’s reward was the smallest among the suspected conspirators, with the US government offering $15 million for the detention of Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro. Numerous more high-ranking officials, including El Aissami, are facing $10 million bounty payments.