El Nacional reports that Wilmer Ruperti recently purchased Channel 43, Radio Rumbos and El Diario de Caracas

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): As an answer to reports by the national daily circulation El Nacional that Wilmer Ruperti, owner of Canal-I, had purchased three more media holdings, unidentified sources contacted The Daily Journal to say that El Nacional missed an important part of the information.

On Wednesday, El Nacional reported that Wilmer Ruperti, an entrepreneur whose name has been related to several corruption scandals, had recently purchased Channel 43, Radio Rumbos, and El Diario de Caracas. Another purchase the private newspaper reported Ruperti to have executed recently was the Investment Bank (Baninvest).

Ruperti came into the public spotlight in 2002 when he used his holdings in Sudamerica de Transporte Petrolero to give use of a fleet of tankers to PDVSA to transfer food products during the oil strike/workers lockout aimed at ruining the economy and ousting President Chávez. For this action, he had received a presidential decoration.

El Nacional also reports that Ruperti was sued for supposedly hiding United States oil operations, though no verdict has been reached. And, in 2004, that he spent $1.5 million for some pistols, adorned in gold, that Simón Bolívar bought in Paris in 1805.

All of this is true, the man contacting this journal said, but it should also be remembered that he is a business partner of Pedro Torres. Torres is another entrepreneur who opposition-aligned Venezuelan media has linked to different corruption cases.