Spain warns it may close Alejandro Betancourt case

Spain’s National Court has been waiting nearly a year for a U.S. response in a money-laundering and tax-evasion case tied to Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, according to El País. Judge Santiago Pedraz has warned that if Washington does not answer a formal request for legal assistance by December 2026, he will close the proceeding again. The same businessman is described by El País as a key architect of a recent Washington–Caracas oil deal struck weeks before September 14.

The Spanish case is built around a practical problem: to prove money laundering, investigators must show an underlying crime that generated the funds. Prosecutors are examining the origin and destination of more than $4 billion allegedly diverted from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company, and routed through international channels. To establish that predicate offense, Spain has asked to take testimony from witnesses who have already been convicted in the United States in the PDVSA corruption scheme known as “Money Flight,” El País reports. Without those statements, the Spanish file risks becoming a shell: allegations, asset trails, and corporate structures without the sworn testimony that ties the money to a specific crime.

El País says sources close to the investigation attribute the delay to the United States, which faces no legal deadline to answer. Spain and the U.S. have judicial cooperation systems backed by treaties, and Spain’s Justice Ministry maintains a liaison judge in Washington, but none of that compels a timely reply. The result is a familiar asymmetry: the country that already prosecuted the underlying PDVSA scheme holds the evidentiary keys, while the country trying to pursue related laundering claims waits.

That waiting now intersects with geopolitics. El País describes Betancourt as a pivotal intermediary for Trump’s circle in efforts to revive Venezuela’s oil business after the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, and says both the White House and acting Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez have publicly defended him. The newspaper also reports that Trump’s inner circle is aware of Betancourt’s legal exposure in Venezuela, the United States, Switzerland and Spain, with the U.S. and Swiss cases still active. In Spain, Betancourt is a visible investor—known for owning the Hawkers eyewear brand and for buying a castle in Toledo—making the investigation politically harder to ignore even as it stalls procedurally.

The most concrete pressure point is Judge Pedraz’s deadline warning: absent U.S. cooperation by December, the case may be closed again. Spain’s request is still pending, and Betancourt’s role in a newly signed oil arrangement is now being discussed in public while the court file sits in limbo.

Judge Pedraz’s next move depends on a reply that, so far, has not arrived.