Murderer of Venezuela’s ‘Burning Man’ Had Links to Odebrecht

Enzo Franchini Oliveros, identified as the alleged murderer of Orlando Figuera, managed a family-owned engineering and construction company in Venezuela that had contracts with Brazil’s scandal-plagued Odebrecht corporation, VTV reported Tuesday.

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Figuera was the 21-year-old Black Venezuelan youth who was burned alive on May 20 during a right-wing opposition protest in Altamira, a hotbed of opposition violence against Venezuela's socialist government.

Franchini Oliveros and other protesters accused him of supporting the government. He was later stabbed, doused with gas and burned alive.

Venezuela's Bolivarian Intelligence Service, SEBIN, located Franchini Oliveros during a raid in the Los Palos Grandes neighborhood in Caracas on Monday. Video footage helped to identify the fugitive, who used a helmet and rode a motorcycle on the day of Figuera's murder.

According to Lechuguinos, data registered with the National Contracting Service, SNC, indicates that Franchini Oliveros is the administrator and minority shareholder of Franchini Oliveros Technical Office. It is a family-run business founded by his parents, Massimo Franchini and Elena Oliveros, in November 2000.

Contracts were signed between Franchini Oliveros Technical Office and Odebrecht in 2008.

Franchini Oliveros’ sister, who provided a deposition to SEBIN, denied that she or her family had any knowledge of his involvement in Figuera's death.

Suffering from stab wounds and first and second degree burns on 80 percent of his body, Figuera passed away two weeks later from cardiopulmonary arrest.

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While the international corporate media and the U.S. government depict opposition protests as being “peaceful,” Figuera's mother, Ines Esparragoza, blamed the opposition for her son's death.

“Why does (National Assembly chief) Julio Borges allow this, and (opposition leader) Henrique Capriles, allow this? Who am I going to blame?” she asked. 

In the same breath, she began to cry, responding, “The opposition. Because they are the ones that threw gasoline on my son like an animal … if it wasn't my son, it would have been someone else’s.”

Odebrecht company executives are guilty of illicitly acquiring contracts since 2001, admitting to paying more than US$788 million in 2016 to at least 12 countries in Latin America and Africa. Numerous ministers, presidential candidates and presidents were reportedly party to the payout.