Alejandro Betancourt López, a Venezuelan businessman and leader of a Barbados-registered company called North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), is at the center of a major U.S.-Venezuela oil agreement that former President Donald Trump described as "the biggest in history." Under the deal, Nabep would control the production and sale of 17 oil fields, estimated to hold about 65 billion barrels of crude oil. Betancourt, who is believed to be worth around $2.6 billion, has been involved in Venezuelan business since the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has faced investigations in five countries, though he has never been convicted of a crime. Born in Caracas in 1980, Betancourt studied at Suffolk University and later founded Derwick Associates, an engineering company that secured $5 billion in government contracts without going through competitive bidding around 2009. This success earned him and other young entrepreneurs the nickname "bolichicos," a term mixing "Bolivarian" (related to Chávez's political movement) and "chico" (meaning "kid" in Spanish). His legal team has rejected the label, calling it a media-invented term for young entrepreneurs who have prospered in Venezuela. Betancourt's business interests span more than 50 companies in 16 countries. In 2013, former U.S. ambassador Otto Reich sued Betancourt and two associates, claiming they had paid Venezuelan officials for contracts. The lawsuit was later dismissed, but investigations into alleged corruption involving the state oil company PDVSA have continued in Spain, Switzerland, Andorra, and the U.S. In 2025, Betancourt was detained twice by British police, and Spanish authorities searched his estate in Toledo, Spain, as part of an investigation into money laundering by Swiss prosecutors. His lawyer suggested the actions were due to Betancourt’s connections with other Venezuelan entrepreneurs. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited three reasons for selecting Betancourt as a partner: his ability to produce oil, his lack of active U.S. investigations, and his support for the Venezuelan opposition. Betancourt aligned with opposition leader Juan Guaidó during Trump’s first term, helping him build relationships with U.S. officials such as Mauricio Claver-Carone and Rudy Giuliani. However, after a failed attempt to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power in 2019, Betancourt was removed from the oil sector and moved between Madrid and London. According to the Washington Post, U.S. authorities asked Switzerland to drop its request for Betancourt’s extradition, which was granted, allowing him to travel freely in London. Axios reported that shortly after a January 3 military operation that led to the arrest of Maduro and his wife, Betancourt acted as a go-between for then-Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Rubio. Rodríguez, now the interim president of Venezuela, defended Betancourt, stating he has no pending legal cases in Venezuela or the U.S.