Byelorussia's Attorney General Office has not found either the charges or the crime that has been attributed to him. However, it ended up confirming that there exists a criminal proceeding against the owner of Belzarubezhstroy - known for its acronym, BZS-, a company which holds all the building contracts that Venezuela's Head of State Hugo Chávez offered to his Byelorussian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.

Just as it happened with the unexpected detention of Ricardo Fernández Barrueco in Venezuela, the Byelorussian press wonders what Viktor Shevtsov could have done to be removed from Lukashenko's most spoiled businessmen list and also be cited to appear in court, whose district attorneys keep even his whereabouts secret.

A few weeks were enough for Shevtsov to fall from grace, and the loose ends lead to Venezuela. Although the capital cities of Caracas and Minsk are 9,350 kilometers far from each other, the tentacles of the so-called Rebars Mafia reached to Byelorussia. That is what certain local news media from Western Europe have been reporting since November. Now, government authorities acknowledge a criminal proceeding against the owner of the company, which has President Chávez's contracts.

Such case is a commotion Western Europe: newspapers, radio stations and websites from Byelorussia, Russia and even Lithuania have widely echoed the Byelorussian magnate's fall.

Among the reports that have been issued, the local media cites anonymous sources which certify that the Venezuelan allies requested, behind closed doors, to reopen the case for using in guise of the Byelorussian housing projects to divert full-size trucks loaded with rebars to destinations other than the previously declared.

"Venezuelan partners supposedly caught Byelorussians red-handed when they attempted to steal two tons of reinforcing bars," pointed out the online newspaper Carta97 on November 12 in one of the early press reports issued on the case.

"The information was released by local authorities during Viktor Sheiman's visit to Venezuela and then of course it landed on Lukashenko's desk," they added.

In the city of Maracay, meanwhile, the rebar smuggling is also hot news. In Guasimal sector, where Byelorussians build an urban project consisting of 5,000 homes, nobody misses Shevtsov. Workers do not know him; they have never heard that last name, yet the so-called Mafia of the rebar does ring a bell to them.

They even relate it to the capture by the Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigation Agency (known for its acronym, Cicpc) of one of the Byelorussians who worked on the building project. "They came and took him away in handcuffs and with a hood over his head," points out one of the Venezuelan workers who operate in that place.

The scientific police had already leaked certain information claiming that the Rebars Mafia had also permeated BZS. Although they never noticed that it concerned the Byelorussian house builder, they informed on March 18 of the current year that they had confiscated some rebars from that company on La Raiza Road in Santa Teresa del Tuy municipality.

Russian spoken

Unlike the urban housing complexes that a Chinese company builds in another area of Maracay city or the buildings that an Iran company constructs in the Venezuelan Plains, there exists a military camp in Guasimal sector, spot where the Byelorussians develop their corresponding housing project; a camp that workers once again link to the smuggling of building materials.

There, over that leveled area that is raised beside avenue Maracay-Turmero; Russian is spoken as well. Right there, where President Chávez and President Lukashenko announced a project of 2,520 homes for the current year and another set in a second round, there is a team of interpreters who day to day communicate building workers the orders given by Byelorussian engineers and construction managers.

Trasnational silence

Lukashenko is mad, those inside BZS Company affirm. They add that on three occasions, he has postponed a scheduled visit official to inaugurate the housing complex in the city of Maracay. That and other gossips circulate here and there, but it is difficult to bring them into reality when there is no official information available; as a result, silence travels back and forth from Caracas to Minsk.

Byelorussia's Ministry of Interior has only indicated that the criminal investigation against BZS's owner is under their charge and not under the Attorney General's charge of that country. In the meantime, Venezuela's People's Ministry of Housing and Habitat ignored the requests for an account balance on the Byelorussian housing projects.

BZS has not even answered if the criminal proceeding against its main shareholder will change the destiny of the construction material factory they promise to build in Guarenas and the three housing complex projects they are currently developing in Caracas and Maracay.

In Minsk, corporate executive officers make no comments, and last Friday they opted to act likewise in Caracas, when they were visited at the offices they have in Millenium apartment block.

BZS has been in the country for more than four years. However, as recently as March 17th, 2010 Presidents Chávez and Lukashenko met up in Maracay, in order to lay the foundation stone for a building project in which both of them promised 5,000 homes, a medical assistance center, sports facilities and Bolivarian school.

Announces, however, are delayed: Minister Ricardo Molina expressed on November 4th, 2010 that the first round would be finished in July of this current year; last May 24th, he postponed the inauguration to November and on this occasion, those in Guasimal sector keep on working to see if they finally inaugurate some apartments before December 31st, 2011.

While businessman Viktor Shevtsov is gaining a bad reputation in Western Europe, here in the country, there is a cloak of doubt on the company that he brought under Lukashenko's recommendation.

Shevtsov was known as one of the patrons of Byelorussian sports and culture. He sponsored the Olympic Committee of his country and supported the Dudutki Ethnographical Museum. Last summer, he was even honored in company with his wife, Helen, by the Byelorussian Ortodox Church.

He occupied the first place in the honor roll of Byelorussian businessmen. He had even managed to survive the denunciations in which the United States accused him of smuggling guns and laundering money in Iraq, through Infobank. This time, however, it seems that in Venezuela his luck changed for the worst.

jpoliszuk@eluniversal.com

Translated by Adrián Valera