Accused Venezuelan agent may have been offered millions to keep silent

When Argentine customs officers searched the suitcase of an arriving Venezuelan businessman a year ago this month, they found about $800,000 in cash - a discovery that sparked an international scandal stretching from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Caracas, Venezuela, to Key Biscayne, Fla. Now it turns out that the Key Biscayne-based Venezuelan businessman, Guido Alejandro Antonini, carried more money than previously reported, but that he and a companion removed unspecified amounts before the suitcase was seized in Buenos Aires on Aug. 4, 2007. Antonini eventually turned in $3,250 to the FBI, court records show. Documents recently filed in Miami federal court also reveal that the Venezuelan intelligence service known as DISIP may have sought to offer Antonini $2 million to buy his silence. 'They told me that DISIP had sent two million, one million dollars to be given to me ... that they would double the amount,' Antonini is quoted as saying in the transcript. The case has drawn worldwide attention because it underscores the sharp ideological tensions between Washington and Caracas over Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's anti-American policies.