WASHINGTON – Former U.S. congressman David Rivera has been indicted by a grand jury in the District of Columbia in a scheme to “violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and to launder funds to conceal and promote his criminal conduct,” the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday in a news release.
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Rivera, 59, was indicted Tuesday and allegedly received more than $5 million for his efforts in lobbying executive branch officials and laundering criminal proceeds.
“As alleged in the indictment, from in or about June 2019 through in or about April 2020, Rivera carried out a scheme to provide consulting and lobbying services to sanctioned Venezuelan businessman Raul Gorrín, who was added to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List) on Jan. 8, 2019, by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC),” the news release stated. “On Gorrín’s behalf, Rivera sought to lobby U.S. government officials, including a senior official in the Executive Branch of the U.S. government (Government Official-1), to have Gorrín removed from the SDN List. Rivera received over $5.5 million for these activities and willfully failed to register under FARA, as required by law.”
According to federal prosecutors, Rivera tried to conceal his criminal activities by creating fraudulent shell companies using names associated with a law firm and with “Government Official-1″ to make it appear that the companies were legitimate.
“In reality, these entities were not affiliated with the law firm or Government Official-1, and neither the law firm nor Government Official-1 were aware that Rivera had created shell companies in their names,” the news release stated. “Rivera used the money he received from his criminal activities to pay individuals who assisted him in his efforts to lobby senior government officials on Gorrín’s behalf, including by making payments through one of the shell companies.”
The FBI Miami Field Office is investigating the case.
In 2022, Rivera was charged with money laundering and acting as unregistered foreign agents for President Nicolás Maduro’s government.
In that case, prosecutors obtained a judge’s order, freezing several banking and brokerage accounts as well as Florida properties that they said were the product of some $24 million in ill-gotten gains.
Rivera served as a Republican U.S. Representative, serving District 25, from 2011 to 2013.