The "Twelve Apostles" (Los Doce Apóstoles) were a group of Venezuelan businessmen close to President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
The term was coined by Pedro Duno (1975) and became part of the Venezuelan political language.
[1] The group included Pedro Tinoco and Carmelo Lauria Lesseur.
Lacking a power base in the party, Pérez allied himself with businessmen outside it.
After he attained the presidency, the names of these businessmen appeared on "many of the financially most lucrative contracts awarded in the period 1974-78, including the Guri Dam, Cementos Caribe (the licensing of a new cement factory), the new Zulia steel mill, the Pentacom petrochemical project, and the construction of Parque Central (the largest shopping mall/office complex in South America at the time), among many others"[1]