The FBI has investigated Mark Fullbrook, the current chief of staff of British Prime Minister Liz Truss, for his alleged participation in a bribery scheme during the 2020 electoral campaign in Puerto Rico, “The Times” newspaper revealed this Sunday.
Fullbrook, who led Truss’s campaign to win the Conservative primary and also advised former British heads of state Boris Johnson and John Major, was part of the investigation into an alleged “conspiracy to subvert democracy” on the US-administered Caribbean island. Joined. the British newspaper said.
In April, the FBI contacted the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and the London Metropolitan Police for a formal questioning of Fullbrook, who participated voluntarily.
After being “forced to hand over hundreds of confidential emails”, Truss’s chief of staff, who took office as prime minister less than two weeks ago, “has signed an agreement with the FBI and collaborates as a witness” in the investigation.
The searches focus on an alleged bribery of Venezuelan Julio Herrera Velutini, an international banker and patron of the British Conservative Party.
Velutini, 50, would have promised the governor of Puerto Rico, Wanda Vázquez, 300,000 dollars (about 299,500 euros) for her 2020 campaign on the condition that she fire the island’s financial regulator, explains “The Times”.
The Venezuelan, who also has an Italian passport, does not have the necessary status to make political donations to US campaigns, but he has given funds to the firm CT Group, founded by political strategist Lynton Crosby, involved in several campaigns in the United Kingdom. to act as an intermediary.
According to the British newspaper, Fullbrook, at that time the company’s global project manager, was in control of these operations, a situation that led him to be implicated in the investigations.
Source: TSF
