Alejandro Betancourt’s tentacles in Spain are long. The Venezuelan businessman who amassed a fortune after his country’s power crisis at the end of the 2010s has seen his wealth rise again after the Trump administration touched him with the magic oil wand, entrusting him with crude exploitation in a deal with the government of Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez. The billionaire’s assets in Madrid alone are substantial, according to police documents that are part of an ongoing investigation into alleged money laundering. Authorities seized five luxury cars, a United Arab Emirates residency card and 17 firearms at his private estate in Toledo.

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The heirs of Oswaldo Cisneros, once one of Venezuela’s richest men, received unusual news last April: strangers were touring their oil fields in the Orinoco Belt. On paper, they remained the legitimate operators of the assets, but it soon became clear that, even as those visits took place in plain sight, a plan was being put in motion to take the fields away from them.

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