Portugal is investigating alleged appropriation of funds belonging to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA that were channeled through now-defunct Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo between 2009 and 2014, PDVSA said on Saturday. PDVSA's reputation has been tarnished in recent years by high-profile corruption investigations including guilty pleas by two US-based contractors who authorities said ran a $1 billion corruption scheme associated with PDVSA contracts.

Venezuela's opposition-led Congress last year said about $11 billion in funds went missing at PDVSA while Rafael Ramirez, currently Venezuela's UN envoy, was at the helm from 2004 to 2014. Ramirez slammed the report as "irresponsible lies." "Portuguese law enforcement agencies are investigating supposed appropriation of funds belonging to the corporation that were channeled through the above-mentioned institution," the company said in a statement. The investigators are reviewing operations "in which there could have been money laundering and in which former employees of PDVSA and its subsidiaries could have been involved."

PDVSA until 2014 received payments for crude deliveries at its accounts at BES, as the bank was known, according to a 2014 Reuters report that cited an internal PDVSA document. BES collapsed in 2014. Some of its assets were used to create a new bank called Novo Banco. PDVSA had also bought $365 million in bonds issued by the holding company of the family of Ricardo Salgado, who was founder and president of the bank, according to a 2014 Reuters special report.

Copyright Reuters, 2017