
Who is José Santiago Moreno Martínez, the new president of the CVM?
Transparency Venezuela, October 16, 2024.- the major general Jose Santiago Moreno Martinez He is the new president of the Venezuelan Mining Corporation (CVM), according to Decree No. 4.995, published in the Official Gazette No. 6.836, which replaced the also military one Carlos Osorio Zambrano, who held that position since June 2019, when he was also appointed by Nicolás Maduro, and was considered one of the strong men in the southern part of the country. This appointment places Moreno Martínez, from September 2024, at the head of one of the key institutions in the development of the mining sector in Venezuela, attached to the Ministry of Popular Power for Ecological Mining Development.
Reports of Transparency Venezuela refer the omnipresence of the GVC in the Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA), with strict control over the processing of gold and complaints of opacity in the quantity of mineral processed, since it is unknown what is actually reported, by legal mandate, to the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV). “The CVM is the most powerful state actor at this time in the southern region,” said a researcher from Bolívar state in the aforementioned report.
Moreno Martínez graduated from the Military Academy of Venezuela on July 5, 1990. In his profile on the social network Instagram He describes himself as a “soldier committed to the homeland of Bolívar and Chávez.”
The positions held by the new president of the CVM
the major general Jose Santiago Moreno Martinez has commanded in several states of Venezuela the so-called Comprehensive Strategic Defense Region (REDI), defined by the Venezuelan authorities as a space “with geostrategic characteristics” for “the defense of the national territory.” According to the registry of VendataThese have been the positions of the new president of the CVM:
- In July 2021, he was appointed commander of the Los Andes REDI, which includes the territory of the states of Táchira, Mérida and Trujillo.
- Commander of the Western Comprehensive Strategic Defense Region - Western REDI - (2020-2021).
- Commander of the Comprehensive Defense Operational Zone No. 13 Lara of the Western REDI (2019-2020).
- Commander of the Comprehensive Defense Operational Zone No. 32 Barinas of the Los Llanos REDI (2018-2019).
- Commander of the 35th Libertador José de San Martín Military Police Brigade of the Army -Caracas- (2017-2018).
- Commander of the 22nd Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Army -Mérida- (2015-2017)
- Director General of the General Directorate of Companies and Services of the Ministry of Defense (2013-2015).