A Path Forward for Anticorruption in Venezuela?

When the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January 2026 and then Vice President Delcy Rodríguez assumed the role of Acting President, Transparency International called for “restoring democracy… protect[ing] the rights of Venezuelans and address[ing] the country’s entrenched corruption crisis.” In that statement, TI-Venezuela Executive Director Mercedes de Freitas said, “we now need an honest and transparent state that is truly accountable to Venezuelans.” Following Maduro’s removal, the US has eased sanctions, restored diplomatic ties, started to sell Venezuelan oil and is exploring mineral rights. At the same time, as has been widely noted, the prior regime remains largely unchanged. 

To learn more about the previous corruption landscape, the current situation in Venezuela, the prospects for truly restoring democracy and what a genuine effort to reduce corruption would entail, I spoke recently with Christi Rangel, Research Coordinator at TI-Venezuela. An economist by training, Rangel began working with TI-Venezuela in 2005, when the organization approached her university research center to collaborate on a local government transparency assessment. She eventually joined TI-Venezuela full-time. Rangel told me that her work covered fiscal transparency issues, some prominent corruption cases, state-owned enterprises – notably Petroleos de Venezuela – and Venezuela's relationships with China and Russia. She also represented TI-Venezuela for the International Budget Partnership's biennial open budget assessments, before Venezuela was excluded from the survey in 2023.

As she explained, the corruption landscape in Venezuela has spanned petty corruption, grand corruption, kleptocracy and state capture, often with a through-line of criminal and armed groups engaging in trafficking drugs, gold and people. At the petty level, she said, small bribes were routine to engage basic government services, such as obtaining a passport, crossing a border, or driving on highways. Political corruption took the form of social programs weaponized to pressure citizens to support the ruling party in a country with widespread poverty. At the level of grand corruption, she noted that Venezuela was deeply engaged in the Odebrecht case, and while the company's CEO testified that Venezuela was the second-largest recipient of its bribes after Brazil, no domestic investigation followed. She told me that 73 cases related to Petroleos de Venezuela have gone uninvestigated in Venezuela, while a further 175 cases involving nearly $73 billion in 30 other countries are linked to Venezuela, including numerous US cases under the FCPA. She described state capture that was deeply enmeshed in the justice, customs and port systems. As a result, she said, a tremendous amount of work is needed.

Rangel did tell me that she sees “a window of opportunity,” and identified several priorities. To truly tackle impunity, she told me, the justice system needs to be overhauled, with a special anti-corruption investigator, independent courts, a new attorney general and stronger oversight bodies. She pointed to needed legal reforms on anti-corruption measures, lobbying, and gifts to public officials. Budget and debt transparency will be essential, as well as introducing a merit-based system to select civil servants. She also stressed the importance of adopting open government principles to better connect citizens and government. In her view, such measures can help attract transparent Western investment while guarding against opaque Chinese and Russian capital. Above all, she told me, new parliamentary elections are needed; however, these are not yet planned. By the same token, she said, “In the last two months, many things have changed. Not as much as people wanted, but transitions take time.”

In terms of how TI-Venezuela will be able to help advance these efforts, Rangel told me that she and her colleagues are still discussing that issue. Previously they were able to operate, albeit with some difficulty, both under Hugo Chávez and Maduro, but gradually the risks increased. When one colleague was briefly detained in 2017, TI-Venezuela began taking more precautions, she shared. As the government stepped up its efforts to restrict civic space around 2020, and after the disputed presidential election of July 2024, the team began to self-censor, and ultimately TI-Venezuela began to work in exile, with the staff dispersing to other countries. Now, she says, while it might not yet be safe, she is watching the situation closely and is cautiously optimistic about the possibilities for a return.

Marc Schleifer

Governance, Democracy and Economic Development Expert