An investigation by Revista Factum revealed that Bukele, who became president in June, received $1.9 million from Inversiones Valiosas S.A. (Inverval) in 2013 when he was mayor of the small town of Nuevo Cuscatlán, near the capital. Inverval is owned by Alba Petróleos, an El Salvador-based subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA), the Venezuelan state-owned oil firm that is under heavy sanctions by the US Treasury Department for being a vehicle for corruption.
The ties between Bukele and Alba Petróleos emerged in May 2019 after El Salvador’s Attorney General’s Office opened a money laundering inquiry into 23 companies, including Inverval.
Interval funneled the cash to Bukele — a rising star in the then-ruling party, the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional — FMLN) — as campaign donations. Inverval also made donations to a company belonging to a family friend of Bukele and other close associates, who now serve in the president’s cabinet.
