[2] In September and October 2009 Ricardo Fernández Barrueco had led a group of investors in taking over four banks - Canarias, Confederado, Bolívar and BanPro - together accounting for 5.7 percent of Venezuela's banking sector.
[3] In late 2009 Fernandez was arrested in Venezuela for a variety of charges, including misappropriation of funds, in connection with the takeover due to liquidity problems of the four banks acquired by Fernandez.
[4] The crisis saw the December 2009 resignation of a government minister, Jesse Chacón, upon the arrest of his brother Arné Chacón in relation to a banking corruption scandal.
He stated in media interviews, "I called the president and told him that in these conditions I would prefer to resign so that there would be no doubt about our transparency in this investigation".
[5] Earlier in the year the government had already been forced to take over Stanford Bank Venezuela, as well as encountering a corruption crisis at the state-owned Banco Industrial de Venezuela which saw the latter's ex-president arrested on corruption charges.