Known as the Citgo 6, the men are all workers of the Houston-based refining business of the same name, which is owned by Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA.
Five of them, Gustavo Cárdenas, Jorge Toledo, Jose Luis Zambrano, and Alirio Zambrano, and Tomeu Vadell, all U.S. citizens, were convicted to eight years and 10 months. Jose Pereira, a permanent resident of the U.S., got 13 years.
Thursday's conviction is the conclusion of a saga that started Nov. 21, 2017, the day the men came for what they were told was a sudden business conference in the country's capital of Caracas. Once in the boardroom, though, military intelligence officers rushed into the room. Officers commanded the men to hand over passports and other identification documents and then hauled them off to jail.
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They were charged with embezzlement linked to a never-executed proposal to refinance approximately $4 billion of Citgo bonds. All six insist on their innocence. The arrests occurred at a tumultuous time for the country when relationships between the Trump administration and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro started to decline. Maduro began a purge of PDVSA after the arrest of the men. Since then, the country has slid into its worst-ever economic meltdown, including the breakdown of its oil industry.
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Citgo said in a statement that company representatives have only seen media reports of their colleagues' views.
"While we do not have first-hand knowledge of these reported convictions, we are distressed to read about this outcome," the company said in a statement. "We continue to pray for them and their families and hope for a resolution that will lead to their prompt release. We also hope that the Venezuelan authorities honor the request of the United States Government that they be released."
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The trial of the six, which was shut to the media, started in August. Closing arguments were made Thursday, and shortly after, Judge Lorena Cornielles sentenced the men.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Friday that the United States "unequivocally condemns" a Venezuelan court's conviction of six past officials of U.S. refiner Citgo of fraud charges and requested for them to be sent home.
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"Having already spent over three years wrongfully detained in Venezuela on these specious charges, the majority of the time in horrific prison conditions, these six individuals should be immediately returned to the United States," Pompeo told of the six, who were sentenced on Thursday to longer than five years of prison.
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