Venezuela, Mexican Firm Exchanged Oil Amid Sanctions

Following the collapse of Nicolás Maduro’s government after a US operation, renewed attention has turned to the case of Mexican businessmen who, starting around 2019, built an “opaque network “with the Venezuelan government that exchanged crude oil for food supplies. The episode, initially framed as a humanitarian mechanism, has resurfaced as a key example of how Venezuela sustained oil exports under international sanctions through foreign intermediaries.

Under the guise of a humanitarian swap, Venezuela used the Mexican company Libre Abordo to lift and market crude oil in the midst of US sanctions, a practice that allowed Venezuelan-origin crude to be exported and resold internationally while the promised humanitarian supplies were largely unfulfilled.

Since 2021 EL PAÍS and Armando.info reported documents reviewed by investigators that Libre Abordo was presented as a Mexican government-nominated partner to execute a program of exchanging oil for food, supported by government agencies, though the actual operations mainly moved crude oil rather than delivering the agreed humanitarian goods.

According to documents, reported as well by Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción, Libre Abordo was created by a group of Mexican businesspeople and identified as an entity “named by the Government of Mexico for the humanitarian exchange program of oil for food with Venezuela” to sell food products intended to be marketed between the two nations, reports El País. The company claimed to have entered agreements backed by Seguridad Alimentaria Mexicana (Segalmex), the Mexican government food agency, to supply 210,000t of maize and 1,000 tanker trucks of drinking water to Venezuela in exchange for crude oil.

According to the documents, the Nicolás Maduro’s administration needed to exchange oil for food amid pressure from US sanctions that blocked straightforward commercial sales. The payment for the food contracts was set at 2MMb of oil from state-company PDVSA, but the crude barrels “ended up becoming at least 30MMb shipments that sailed between November 2019 and May 2020.” Libre Abordo justified the increase on the grounds of the global drop in crude prices and claimed to use barter arrangements described as “humanitarian aid” to try to evade sanctions.

In the eyes of the US government, the so-called humanitarian transactions were not delivered as promised and instead produced a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars for a group of intermediaries at the expense of Venezuelan natural resources. On June 18, 2020, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Libre Abordo and its legal representative Joaquín Leal for conducting business with Venezuela that aided in evading sanctions and facilitating PDVSA crude exports. The sanctions also targeted affiliated entities. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control described the network as transporting petroleum “stolen from the Venezuelan people” and operating outside authorized channels.

The detailed El País report also highlights that the link between Libre Abordo and Mexican authorities involved personal connections, including meetings between Leal and Maximiliano Reyes, the then-Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean. Libre Abordo’s corporate presentation claimed the humanitarian exchange was forged through bilateral conversations between the two governments and asserted that Segalmex had instructions from the federal government to proceed with the humanitarian aid intended to benefit the people of Mexico and Venezuela. 

Despite the claims of government backing, the Mexican Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) launched an investigation into the financial trail of approximately €200 million connected to the oil-for-food arrangements. Reports indicate that while the UIF sought asset freezes and account blocks for individuals and firms involved, progress in judicial action within Mexico remained limited, and there was little indication of actual delivery of the food and water supplies as envisaged in the original agreements.

This episode emerges once again within the broader challenges facing Venezuela’s oil sector under long-standing sanctions imposed by the United States. The network used by Libre Abordo and affiliated firms was part of a pattern of sanctioned intermediaries that sought to bypass restrictions by rebranding commercial oil movements as humanitarian activity, complicating enforcement and compliance in global energy markets. Political change in Venezuela, including the reported capture of President Nicolás Maduro in early 2026 and the subsequent shift in US control over Venezuelan oil sales, underscores how sanctions regimes and political dynamics shape export strategies and contractual relationships for state and private actors alike. That reporting also notes increases in Venezuelan crude loadings by major international operators under evolving licensing arrangements, reflecting broader transformation in how Venezuelan oil enters global markets.