The acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, has filed a complaint against the businessman Víctor de Aldama for a supposed serious defamation offense with publicity, following statements made by him in two television segments.
According to the complaint, in those interventions Aldama linked her to the delivery of an envelope that would contain documentation about alleged irregular financing of the PSOE. Rodríguez had already promoted in July an act of conciliation with Aldama so that he would retract, warning that she would take the matter to the criminal courts if he did not.
The facts relate to the interviews granted by Aldama on February 4 and 5, 2026 in "Diario de la Noche", on Telemadrid, and "Horizonte", aired on Cuatro and on the Mediaset Infinity platform. In the brief, it is stated that the businessman mentioned a supposed envelope bearing the logo of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA, which would include documentation about judicially investigated events relating to alleged irregularities in the financing of the PSOE, as this Monday has been pointed out by the law firm Baltasar Garzón.
Rodríguez firmly rejects Aldama’s statements. In the complaint, she states that she was never aware of the existence of that envelope or its contents and that at no time did she deliver it to the businessman.
That envelope was already included in the investigations of the Audiencia Nacional. In March, Aldama provided to the judge instructing the "Koldo case" an envelope which, as he claimed, would have been delivered to him by the Venezuelan leader herself and which would contain information about alleged irregular financing of the PSOE and the Socialist International. The magistrate Ismael Moreno had required him to deposit it in the secret part where payments in cash by the PSOE intended to reimburse advance expenses are investigated.
For the first time, Aldama referred to the contents of the envelope in his statement of January 29 before the judge investigating the "hydrocarbons case", also at the Audiencia Nacional. After hearing him, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office showed interest in that documentation and the businessman urged it to reach an agreement before delving into that point. Before Judge Santiago Pedraz, he explained, in his capacity as a defendant under investigation, that the information in the envelope would be linked to the hydrocarbons sector.
The complaint emphasizes that no evidence appears in the envelope itself that identifies the president as the person who would have made the delivery. It adds that, according to the image of the document circulated in different media, the envelope would have been received in February 2020 with an entry stamp affixed by an official, without Aldama’s surname, and that he would have kept it hidden until 2026.
The law firm also highlights the absence of data about the traceability of the document and about the conditions under which it would have remained from its alleged receipt until its existence became known.
A report from the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Guardia Civil found that Aldama left in the custody of his partner, Luis Alberto Escolano, "sensitive documentation" relating to PDVSA. According to investigators, in a photograph forwarded by Escolano to Aldama, a stamp can be seen on the lower part of the envelope from the Vice Presidency of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that "indicates the receipt of the envelope by Víctor de Aldama on February 4, 2020."
The complaint recalls that, since November 2024, various media outlets have reported on the existence of the envelope and that its image has been published since 2025. It argues that all of this, together with Aldama’s television statements, which linked its contents to alleged operations involving oil quotas and with a possible irregular use of the benefits from their commercialization, has projected onto the complainant "false and publicly a participation in allegedly criminal acts that does not correspond to her." It also specifies that Rodríguez does not appear as an investigated party in the judicial procedure cited in the interviews.
As evidence-gathering steps, the complaint asks the court to require Telemadrid and Cuatro for the complete recordings of the interviews broadcast on February 4 and 5, as well as Aldama’s statement.
The attorneys recall that the crime of insult sanctions "the imputation of facts with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for the truth," aggravated in this case by its dissemination in the media. The possible sentence, in the case of publicly disseminated insults, could consist of a fine of between six and fourteen months.