By Hedelberto López Blanch on April 1, 2026 from Havana
graphic by Aidan
Once again, the mythomaniac Marco Rubio is lying. This time before a Miami court trying his close friend and former congressman, David Rivera.
A report from the Spanish news agency EFE published by El Nuevo Herald stated that Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed in a Miami court that he was unaware of an alleged multimillion-dollar contract that his close friend David Rivera had allegedly signed in 2017 to bring the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro closer to the U.S. government and facilitate a peaceful transition in that country.
Rubio appeared as a witness for the prosecution at a hearing for Rivera, with whom he had purchased a home in Tallahassee, Florida, years ago and lived under the same roof when both were state legislators.
Rivera, along with Esther Nuhfer (who worked for Rubio), are facing a trial in South Florida on corruption charges for embezzling millions of dollars in a shadowy scheme in which they attempted to influence the U.S. administration to ease “sanctions” against the Maduro government during Donald Trump’s first term (2017–2021), when Rubio was a senator in Washington.
For about three hours, the current secretary of state was questioned by both the prosecution and the attorneys for Rivera and Nuhfer, and he asserted that he was unaware that Rivera had a $50 million consulting contract with a U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company for the purposes outlined above.
However, according to the EFE report, Rubio acknowledged that in July 2017 he held two meetings with Rivera in which the former legislator presented a plan that, through businessman Raúl Gorrín—owner of Globovisión and alleged intermediary with the Maduro government—sought to deliver a letter from the then-Venezuelan president to Trump proposing the initiation of a peaceful transition process.
Rubio said that the second meeting, which Gorrín attended at a hotel in Washington, was “a waste of time” because there was no letter of commitment from Maduro, which he was supposedly going to deliver to Trump.
There have been countless occasions when Rivera has had to face trials on charges of corruption, money laundering, and illicit dealings, but in the end, as always happens in Miami, he has been acquitted due to his connections with high-ranking political figures in Miami.
His close relationship with Rubio led him to purchase a three-bedroom home in Tallahassee that stood as a symbol of a politically problematic friendship.
The ties between Rubio and Rivera date back to 1992, when they served as volunteers in the campaign of Lincoln Díaz-Balart, who would represent a district in Miami-Dade County. Those were the days when the Cuban counterrevolution industry was flourishing in the state of Florida, and thanks to his relationship with the Díaz-Balart brothers, Rivera was able to work for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio Martí) and as a USAID contractor.
According to the South Florida program CódigoAbierto360°, by the time Marco Rubio was elected state representative, the two were already known as the “Golden Duo,” and in particular, Rivera, in his work as a lobbyist, earned the nickname “The Enforcer” of Rubio’s orders and also “David La Trampa.”
As recently as March 29, 2025, Venezuela News reported that Alejandro Terán, director of the Latin American Association of Petroleum Entrepreneurs in Texas, claimed that, as a senator, Marco Rubio received corrupt funds from CITGO’s Simón Bolívar Foundation, which was managed by Juan Guaidó. He also accused him of being a lobbyist for ExxonMobil.
Press reports from 2022 indicate that Rivera and Esther Nuhfer were accused of using their access to the corrupt Florida senator and other elected officials to improve Venezuela’s standing with the United States.
Rivera signed a secret consulting contract with CITGO, a subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA USA, for $50 million. The federal indictment alleged that he received more than $13 million through this arrangement.
The indictment alleged that Rivera and Nuhfer organized two meetings with Rubio to discuss Venezuela. According to media reports, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) received information from a source at CITGO linking Marco Rubio and his friend and former congressman Rivera to acts of corruption associated with the corporation.
After The New York Times published details in May 2020 regarding CITGO’s lawsuit against David Rivera’s firm, Interamerican Consulting Inc., for breach of contract over its lobbying services, it came to light that the FBI and the Department of Justice were investigating both of them.
Between October 2020 and April 2021, a whistleblower who requested entry into the federal witness protection program provided information via email to Christopher J. Woehr, Little Duane, and Claudia Mulvey (FDLE) and George Stephan (a special agent with the Department of the Treasury in charge of criminal investigations for the IRS), regarding irregular transaction amounts and alleged money laundering from CITGO, through Luisa Palacios (a member of its board of directors), to banks in Switzerland, Austria, Hong Kong, and Mexico, and to accounts belonging to David Rivera, Diana Rivera McKenzie (David’s sister), and Esther Nuhfer (linked to Rubio) at Chase Bank in Miami-Dade.
Between 2017 and 2020, most of the transfers were made to bank accounts belonging to Viviana Bovo, who used her name to cover for her boss, Marco Rubio, then a highly influential Florida senator who suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.
According to the source from the IRS and the Florida FDLE, Rubio had agreed with Rivera to lobby to obstruct an investigation initiated by the Department of Justice against CITGO for possible violations including money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and other crimes under the RICO Act and other federal laws.
The informant claimed to have witnessed that while David Rivera was at CITGO’s headquarters in Houston, Texas, he was in constant communication with Senator Rubio, and suggested an investigation of his cell phone.
He also asserted that Gina Coon, the company’s treasurer, possessed documents, emails, WhatsApp messages, and audio recordings that would confirm the fraudulent operations between Rivera, Rubio, and their associates.
Now Marco Rubio appears as a “little angel” in the trial against Rivera, but his Pinocchio-like, mythomaniac nose will continue to grow.
Hedelberto López Blanch is a Cuban journalist who writes for the daily newspaper Juventud Rebelde, Resumen Latinoamericano and the weekly Opciones. He is the author of “Cuban Emigration to the United States,” “Secret Stories of Cuban Doctors in Africa,” and “Miami, Dirty Money,” among others.
Source: Cuba en Resumen