Venezuela arrested two Chevron Corp employees, the U.S. oil major said on Tuesday, in what appeared to be the first arrests of a foreign oil company’s direct employees during a purge of alleged graft in the OPEC nation.

Venezuelan intelligence agents arrested the two Venezuelan executives at the Petropiar joint venture in the coastal city of Puerto La Cruz on Monday for alleged wrongdoing, two sources in the oil industry told Reuters.

One of the detainees, Carlos Luis Algarra, is a refining expert whom Chevron had drafted in from its Argentina operations, a third source said.

Read more

The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!