A businessman who prosecutors say carried a cash-filled suitcase into Argentina for Venezuela's government testified on Tuesday that a second suitcase slipped through customs holding $4.2 million. The testimony by key witness Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson was some of the most potentially damaging yet for President Hugo Chavez's government during the trial of a man charged with acting as an illegal Venezuelan agent. Under questioning by Assistant US Attorney Thomas Mulvihill, Antonini said that after the suitcase holding $800,000 was seized from him at the airport in Buenos Aires, he met with Diego Uzcategui, a manager in the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA. He said Uzcategui asked him: “Well Alex, what about the rest of the money? There was another suitcase with $4.2 million.” Prosecutors also presented evidence suggesting that money was frequently sent from Chavez's government to Argentine officials. Antonini, a dual US-Venezuelan citizen, testified against Franklin Duran, a Venezuelan businessmen who is one of five people accused of acting illegally as Venezuelan government agents in a scheme to conceal the source of the confiscated cash. Three others have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors as witnesses; one remains at large and is thought to be in Venezuela. Prosecutors say the seized cash was for the campaign of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, an accusation she and Chavez both vehemently deny as an attempt to smear them for political reasons. Chavez last week called the trial “a trash operation” planned by the United States, and called Antonini a ´traitor? protected by US authorities. “That criminal Antonini, I wish they'd send him to me here so he could tell me to my face who those dollars were from,” Chavez said. “There's an order out for his capture here.” While the courtroom drama has unfolded on front pages in Venezuela and Argentina, witnesses have mentioned several top officials in Chavez's government as having had knowledge of the case. Another witness, Moises Maionica, has testified that he was hired by the Venezuelan government so that Antonini would not reveal the origin or the destination of the money. Maionica said the state oil company was going to pay him $400,000 for his work. He said he also met with Venezuelan intelligence director Gen. Henry Rangel Silva to discuss the case, and that Rangel had been appointed by Chavez to take over handling of the scandal. Antonini left Argentina after the cash was seized and decided to cooperate with the FBI, recording conversations in Miami with the Venezuelans who allegedly pressured him to keep quiet. Prosecutors presented transcripts of recorded conversations as evidence, including one with Duran in which Antonini said Uzcategui told him it was not the first time Venezuela had sent money to Argentina. Uzcategui “told me in the hotel that he had taken many of those trips and so had the minister” of energy, Rafael Ramirez, Antonini said according to the transcript of a conversation in a restaurant. Ramirez is a key member of Chavez's inner circle. During that recorded meeting, Duran allegedly tried to convince Antonini to sign a power of attorney authorizing an Argentine lawyer to defend him. Antonini said the Venezuelan government purportedly wanted him to sign the document so that a smuggling case against him in Argentine would be closed.
