Venezuelan man pleads guilty in cash cover-up

A Venezuelan man pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an illegal foreign agent in a scheme to cover up smuggling $800,000 in cash purportedly destined for the campaign of Argentina’s president, U.S. prosecutors said Monday.

Carlos Kauffmann, 35, a wealthy Venezuelan businessman who has ties to his country’s state oil company, entered his guilty plea Friday. Prosecutors said they would seek to drop another related charge after his sentencing May 12, when he could receive up to five years in prison and as much as a $250,000 fine.

Prosecutors said they could recommend a sentence lower than the maximum if his cooperation helped in the case against three other men still facing charges. Prosecutors said they would also recommend that Kauffmann not be deported to Venezuela, because of “physical safety concerns.”

Defense attorneys for Kauffmann did not return phone calls and e-mails.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas Mulvihill declined to comment on the plea or discuss possible negotiations with other defendants.

In December, U.S. prosecutors charged Kauffmann and four others of trying to conceal the Venezuelan government’s role in attempting to deliver the money in a suitcase last summer to the campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who won Argentina’s presidential race. Fernandez and Venezuela deny that they were involved with the money’s transfer.