Word: antonini
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Sitting in a Florida steakhouse a year ago this month, millionaire Venezuelan oilman Frank Duran allegedly gave his friend Guido Antonini Wilson a dark warning. "A moment might come," Duran said, "when nobody can save Antonini's skin...
...flight from Venezuela, she noticed one that was densely packed with rectangular shapes. On inspection, they turned out to be bricks of bank-notes amounting to $790,550. "He didn't seem to be particularly nervous," says Telpuk of the bag's owner, Venzuelan-American businessman Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, a resident of Key Biscayne with alleged links to President Hugo Chavez and a taste for red Ferraris. "He acted perfectly natural until I ordered him to open the bag. Then he did become uncomfortable and at first he didn't react, so I had to insist, I made...
...Telpuk says she nearly fell over. "I had never seen so much money together in my life." Because the legal limit of undeclared cash that visitors are allowed to bring in to Argentina is $10,000, Telpuk alerted her superiors and Antonini Wilson was whisked away for questioning. Within days, however, the businessman had departed for Florida, amid rumours in the press that the money had been an illegal contribution from Chavez for the electoral campaign of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Both leaders denied the charge, with the Argentinean president suggesting it was part of a U.S. plot...
...Telpuk, it was simply a case of doing her job. "I still don't understand what Antonini Wilson expected to happen when he opened that suitcase," she says. "Maybe he thought I would ask for a bribe and that would be the end of it." That may have been a fair assumption, on his part, given the notorious corruption among Argentine customs agents. But among her fellow agents, Telpuk had a reputation for naive honesty. "Once a passenger dropped a huge wad of dollar bills on my counter and didn't notice, I chased after him down the runway waving...
...next appearance, though, is on the cover of the March issue of the Venezuelan edition of Playboy, although she has declined an invitation to visit Caracas to promote the spread. "I don't know if Chavez would be pleased," she says. "Can you imagine Chavez or Antonini Wilson looking at the pictures of me naked? I'm sure they'll be surprised, I just hope they...