Some were seriously undercapitalized, others were apparently lending large sums of money to top executives, and at least one financier couldn't prove where he got the money to buy his banks in the first place.
[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.
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.