CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez on Saturday threatened to expropriate a major Venezuelan company because of its owners' ties to a scandal involving the seizure of a suitcase stuffed with $800,000 in cash.A Miami jury is deliberating the case of Franklin Duran, a wealthy businessman who was a partner in Industrias Venoco, CA, a company that makes lubricants and other petroleum-based products in Venezuela's central Carabobo state. "The owners of this business, Venoco, are lending themselves to an action against the fatherland in the United States," Chavez said. "This business needs to be expropriated." Telephone calls to Venoco's headquarters were not returned Saturday. Duran has been accused of acting as an illegal foreign agent in the U.S. to cover up the source and destination of the cash-filled suitcase, which authorities seized last year in Argentina. Prosecutors say Venezuela sent the cash as a gift to fund Argentine President Cristina Fernandez's presidential election campaign. Both Chavez and Fernandez have denied the allegation.
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