# Julio Herrera Velutini A billionaire Venezuelan-Italian banker, born in Caracas in 1971 and based in London. He comes from a banking family that traces its business back generations. He owned Bancrédito International Bank & Trust in San Juan, Puerto Rico, until it collapsed amid a federal bribery case. [[Donald Trump]] pardoned him in January 2026. ## Banks on two continents - **Venezuela and Spain.** He chaired Venezuelan banks in the early 2000s and was chairman of Banco Real in Spain until 2009. - **Puerto Rico.** He founded Bancrédito in San Juan as an international banking entity, a type of offshore bank licensed by Puerto Rico. In 2023 [[FinCEN]] fined it **$15 million** for willful [[Bank Secrecy Act]] violations from 2015 to 2022. FinCEN said the bank failed to report suspicious transactions, including those of Venezuelan customers "linked to foreign bribery and money laundering," and ignored its regulator's warnings. The bank began voluntary liquidation in August 2022, the month he was charged. Its holding company is [[Bancredito Holding Corporation]]. - **Britain.** He founded Britannia Financial Group in London and gave the [[Conservative Party (UK)]] more than £500,000 after Boris Johnson became prime minister in 2019. When the US charges came, Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds wrote to the Conservatives asking what access he had been given to Johnson and other ministers, and whether the party would keep his money. ## The case and the pardon - **August 2022:** charged with conspiracy, federal program bribery and honest services wire fraud. Prosecutors said he and his consultant [[Mark Rossini]] promised to fund Governor [[Wanda Vázquez Garced]]'s 2020 campaign if she removed the regulator examining his bank, and paid more than $300,000 to consultants supporting her campaign once she had. They said he made the same kind of offer in 2021 to her successor, [[Pedro Pierluisi]], through a go-between who was actually working for the FBI. - **August 2025:** after [[Chris Kise]], a member of Trump's personal legal team, joined his defense, the felony charges were dropped. He pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor, a campaign contribution by a foreign national. - **January 15, 2026:** Trump granted him a full and unconditional pardon, along with Vázquez and Rossini, before any of them was sentenced. The step-by-step timeline is on [[Herrera Velutini Pardon]]. ## The money around the pardon | Channel | Amount | Page | |---|---|---| | His daughter [[Isabela Herrera]] to [[MAGA Inc]] | $3.5M (Dec 2024 and Jul 2025) | [[Isabela Herrera]] | | His daughter to the [[White House Ballroom Project]] | $2.5M pledged (Sep 2025) | [[Isabela Herrera]] | | His daughter's company to [[Alina Habba]] | More than $50M guaranteed (reported) | below | | His bank's holding company to [[Ballard Partners]] | $630,000 a quarter in 2026 | [[Bancredito-Ballard Partners Lobbying Retainer]] | The [[Campaign Legal Center]] alleges in a complaint to the [[Federal Election Commission]] that his daughter was a straw donor for him. As a foreign national, he cannot legally give to a US election committee. ## The Habba contract In **late October 2025** his daughter Isabela registered a Florida company, [[Concord Partners]], which has no public profile. Within days [[Alina Habba]] finalized a deal to become its general counsel. Habba was then US attorney for New Jersey, and later a senior adviser to Attorney General [[Pam Bondi]] overseeing US attorneys. She formally started on **January 1, 2026**. Weeks later Trump pardoned him. > [!warning] Sourced to one newsroom > The contract terms, $10 million a year for four years plus bonuses with a guaranteed total of more than **$50 million**, were reported by Tyler Pager of the *[[New York Times]]* on October 20, 2026, from interviews and documents the paper obtained, and repeated widely that week. No other newsroom has independently obtained the contract, so this page records it as the *Times*' reporting, not an established fact. > > People familiar with the contract told the paper they believed Habba was hired to help with Herrera's push for a pardon, and that the size of the pay surprised them. Habba says any suggestion her job had anything to do with securing a pardon is false, and that the role was vetted and disclosed to the [[Department of Justice]]. The department says she spoke to no one about a pardon. A White House official said she had nothing to do with it, and that the pardon process runs through the White House Counsel's Office and the department. The Herreras did not respond to requests for comment. The sequence is what makes this a [[Pardon Power]] case rather than an employment story. The family of a man seeking clemency signed a guaranteed eight-figure contract with the president's former personal lawyer, days after creating the company that would pay it and weeks before the clemency came. ## See also - [[Herrera Velutini Pardon]] · [[Isabela Herrera]] · [[Concord Partners]] - [[Wanda Vázquez Garced]] · [[Mark Rossini]] · [[Pedro Pierluisi]] - [[Alina Habba]] · [[Chris Kise]] · [[Donald Trump]] · [[Pam Bondi]] - [[Pardon Power]] · [[Pardons as Currency]] · [[Bancredito Holding Corporation]] · [[MAGA Inc]] - [[White House Ballroom Project]] · [[Venezuela]]