Hugo Chavez's ambassador daughter is Venezuela's richest woman

Maria Gabriela Chavez, 35, the late president's second-oldest daughter, holds assets in American and Andorran banks totaling almost $4.2billion, Diario las Americas reports.

 

The figure would make Gabriela Chavez wealthier than media mogul Gustavo Cisneros, whom Forbes named the wealthiest Venezuelan earlier this year with $3.6billion in assets.

The Miami-based newspaper did not detail what evidence there was outlining Chavez's assets, though there have long been rumors she held a sizable fortune. 

Last year, reporter María Elvira Salazar displayed what appeared to be a receipt showing millions in a bank account belonging to Gabriela Chavez withdrawn in the United States.

The receipt displayed the name Frabz Federal Bank, a fictitious bank used in a meme of fake ATM receipts. 

Others close to Chavez managed to build up great personal wealth that was kept outside the petrostate. 

Alejandro Andrade, who served as Venezuela’s treasury minister from 2007 to 2010 and was reportedly a close associate of Chavez, was discovered to have $11.2billion in his name sitting in HSBC accounts in Switzerland, according to documents leaked by whistleblower Hervé Falciani.

During his lifetime, Hugo Chavez denounced wealthy individuals, once railing against the rich for being 'lazy.'

'The rich don't work, they're lazy,' he railed in a speech in 2010. 'Every day they go drinking whiskey - almost every day - and drugs, cocaine, they travel.'

After her father's death in 2013 and until her appointment to the United Nations as alternate ambassador, Chavez continued to live in the presidential mansion, forcing the current president Nicolas Maduro to remain at the vice presidential home.

El Comercio reported in 2014 that opposition congressman Carlos Berrisbeitía claimed the daughters of Chavez and Maduro, were costing the Venezuelan state $3.6million a day.

 

(Daily Mail)