Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations dismissed the possibility of cooperating with U.S. investigations into a billion-dollar bribery schemes that allegedly occurred at the country's state-run oil company while he was in charge, according to AP. The allegations surrounding corruption at the PDVSA oil company cast a pall over Ambassador Rafael Ramirez as Venezuela took over the rotating presidency of the Security Council on Monday. Ramirez said he was not concerned about the possibility of being indicted as part of U.S. investigations into corruption at PDVSA, which have led to the recent arrests of two Venezuelan businessmen who allegedly paid more than $1 billion in bribes to secure contracts with the company. Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department accused a bank in Andorra of laundering some $2 billion stolen from PDVSA. Ramirez was the president of PDVSA for a decade until 2014. He said he did not know the two businessmen, Abraham Jose Shiera Bastidas and Roberto Rincon, who were arrested in December on charges detailed in an indictment filed in federal court in Houston.
