Four senior U.S. Senate Democrats challenged a proposed Pentagon stake in Venezuelan oil company NABEP, questioning whether the Defense Department has legal authority to buy equity in an oil firm. The proposed 35% holding would put the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital inside a private oil company. The senators say the office’s mandate covers loans and guarantees, not equity ownership.
The authority question
On Wednesday, September 30, 2026, Jeanne Shaheen, Jack Reed, Martin Heinrich and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Each was the senior Democrat on the foreign relations, armed services, energy or banking committee, respectively. The Wall Street Journal first reported the letter; Quartz and WION carried its contents on October 1.
The senators requested the agreement text and its legal basis. They also asked for the State Department’s plan for purchasing NABEP oil and details about the company’s vetting. Those requests put the proposed arrangement’s terms, authorization and oversight at the center of the dispute. The letter marks a formal legal challenge by committee leaders overseeing the matter, but it isn’t binding.
The stake had been reported previously. The senators’ challenge asks whether the Office of Strategic Capital can take an ownership position in a private oil firm when, they said, its mandate is limited to financing through loans and guarantees. The source account doesn’t specify the proposed agreement’s financial terms beyond the 35% stake, or describe any effect on Venezuela’s population or cultural composition.
Questions about potential beneficiaries
The letter also asked whether Trump family members or political donors could benefit from the deal. It didn’t establish that they would. The senators cited past money-laundering investigations of NABEP leader Alejandro Betancourt in Spain, Switzerland and the United States, while noting that authorities had never charged him. The letter also noted that Rubio had said Betancourt wasn’t under active U.S. investigation.
By October 1, no public response from the Pentagon, State Department or Energy Department to the letter had been reported. The senators hadn’t made clear whether they had set a deadline for answers. Since the letter isn’t binding, the deal could proceed unless the administration changes course. The available account describes scrutiny of federal authority and possible beneficiaries; it doesn’t report a transfer of sovereignty to an international institution.
Treasury sanctions and ATM attacks
On the same day as the Senate letter, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated 10 targets in an ATM fraud scheme and a separate gang leader. The scheme used malware to force cash machines in the United States to dispense cash. Treasury said Anibal Alexander Canelón Aguirre, known as “Prometheus,” “orchestrated” the operation. He was on the FBI’s ten most-wanted list.
Treasury called Canelón “the alleged engineer of the malware” and said his network was based in Mexico and Venezuela. As of August 2025, the agency reported U.S. losses of US$40.73 million across more than 1,500 attacks. The designation list included two Mexican companies and Juan Gabriel Rivas Núñez, known as “Juancho,” whom the article linked to illegal gold mining. Treasury said its release didn’t identify Canelón’s current location, and the sanctions froze any U.S. assets of those named.
An X headline shared Thursday morning used the label “new brain” and placed Canelón in Venezuela; a YouTube newscast by Impacto Venezuela used a similar “brain in Venezuela?” phrase. Treasury’s release didn’t use “brain,” instead saying Canelón “orchestrated” the scheme. El Nacional and Infobae also avoided that label. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would deny “these terrorist financial facilitators the resources they need.”