Citgo 6 get lengthy prison terms

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Six U.S. oil executives held for three years in Venezuela were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms Thursday.

Known as the Citgo 6, the men are all employees of the Houston-based refining company of the same name, which is owned by Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA.

Five of the men, Gustavo Cárdenas, Jorge Toledo, Jose Luis Zambrano and Alirio Zambrano, and Tomeu Vadell, all U.S. citizens, were sentenced to eight years and 10 months. Jose Pereira, a permanent resident of the U.S., received 13 years, The Associated Press reports.

Thursday's sentencing is the culmination of a saga that began Nov. 21, 2017, the day the men arrived for what they were told was a sudden business meeting in the country's capital of Caracas. Once in the boardroom, however, military intelligence officers stormed the room. Officers demanded the men hand over passports and other identification cards, and then hauled them off to jail, the AP and the Financial Times report.

They were charged with embezzlement tied to a never-executed proposal to refinance around $4 billion of Citgo bonds. All six maintain their innocence.

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