A brand new company handles Iranian cars arriving in Venezuela
The social program of the Bolivarian government that offered “cheap cars for the people” is, in reality, a private business supported by the Venezuelan State, which sells vehicles imported from Iran for up to 16,000 dollars.
Aiko Motors, a new company as unknown as its owner, is the intermediary of an agreement between the governments of Caracas and Tehran and which, according to estimates, has moved more than 42 million dollars in two years.
This is reported in an investigation by Armando.info.
Shortly before the recent elections on July 28, the president and then candidate for reelection, Nicolás Maduro, arrived with his wife, Cilia Flores, to an event of his electoral campaign at the Teresaa Carreño Theater in Caracas aboard a Tara , a vehicle made in Iran. The four-door sedan, silver and purple, bore the sign of Ridery, the application made in Venezuela that offers private mobility services similar to those of Uber or Lyft, known in English as ride-sharing and in Spanish as VTC (acronym for vehicle for tourism with driver ).
The episode was deliberately spread on social media through official government accounts, including Maduro’s own. In the somewhat overacted video, the Chavista leader and the first combatant pretend to wait for the arrival of the service, like any other customers; when it arrives, it turns out that the presidential couple’s driver is the founder of Ridery himself, Gerson Gómez.
The prominence of Gómez and his brand in a message of this nature - which earned the businessman fierce criticism on social media and the attention of international media - did not necessarily correspond, as was then interpreted, either to an electoral endorsement of the regime or to a marketing activity for the brand, risky but with viral potential; but rather it seems to have followed a more elementary logic, that of pleasing the supplier of the Iranian vehicles that are part of his fleet.
Although they were not assigned to the company directly by the government, Ridery purchased the Iranian Taras from Aiko Motors, a private company that acts as an importer and dealer for the Ministry of Transport.
The head of this portfolio, Ramón Velásquez Araguayán, had been in charge of announcing, in January 2023, the importation of 3,000 vehicles of the Ikco and Saipa brands from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The minister then promoted it with the slogan of “Iranian vehicles at low cost for Venezuelans” and as part of the Great Venezuela Transport Mission, made possible thanks to a cooperation agreement signed by Maduro and the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisí, during an official visit by the Venezuelan president to Tehran in June 2022.
Maduro himself had announced the reactivation of this binational project at the inauguration of the Iran-Venezuela Scientific, Technological and Industrial Expo Fair in September 2022, held at the Poliedro de Caracas, the main arena for shows and events in the Venezuelan capital. At that time, he spoke of resurrecting Venirauto, the joint venture launched in 2006 and agreed upon by the then presidents of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Although an assembly line was installed in the state of Aragua to produce 25,000 vehicles a year, from which units of the Turpial and Centauro models were eventually released onto the market, Venirauto foundered in 2015 without meeting its goals.
In March 2023, Transport Minister Ramón Velásquez Araguayán received a second batch of 2,000 Iranian cars that would be added to the first 1,000 that arrived at the beginning of that year. Credit: Ministry of Transport
But the arrival of the Iranian cars did not feed the offer of the Great Venezuelan Transport Mission, nor did it become the flagship of the social program that would contribute to renewing the national vehicle fleet. After arriving in the country, the hundreds of vehicles were exposed for more than a year to the sun and salty wind of the central coast, parked in front of the Simón Bolívar international airport in Maiquetía, which serves the city of Caracas. There was never an official explanation for that long delay.
At the end of that year, the vehicles began to be removed from the parking lot little by little. But, despite what Minister Araguayán proclaimed, they were not going to the market "as low-cost vehicles for Venezuelans."
“No way! None of us could afford to buy those cars,” says JM, a driver of a historic Caracas taxi line, resignedly, when interviewed for this report. “Nobody had the money to pay 12,000, 14,000 or 16,000 dollars in cash, and the financing they offered was too expensive. In the end, they shared it among a few, Ridery, Conviasa, and a few more went to the Ministry of Transport.”
The vehicles had become, overnight, the merchandise of a recently created, one-owner company with an unknown track record in the automotive sector: Aiko Motors CA. A firm that, based on that act of commercial sleight of hand, could have sold that batch of cars for more than $42 million in the past two years, according to the calculation made on the basis of the retail prices and the number of units that arrived from Iran.
The state-owned Bolipuertos published on its accountTiktok, March 8, 2023, a video showing rows of Iranian cars arriving at the Port of La Guaira as part of the Great Venezuela Transport Mission program. Credit: Bolipuertos
On the wheels of ministry
Since August 2022, Yessica Yulieth Rodriguez Godoy appears in the files as the owner of Aiko Motors CA. This woman’s name does not resonate in the now languid automotive sector. The Caracas merchant was 28 years old when, according to the commercial registry, she acquired the 500 shares that make up the company for a value of 500 bolivars, equivalent to the 500 million bolivars of the original capital before the monetary reconversion of August 2021, when six zeros were removed from the national currency.
Aiko Motors passed into the hands of Rodríguez Godoy a month before Maduro announced at the Iran-Venezuela Scientific, Technological and Industrial Expo Fair that they were going to assemble and market four models of Iranian cars that he described as “modern, economical and beautiful.” Minister Velásquez Araguayán supported the news by detailing that it was a new line of family vehicles and, again, “economy” vehicles, which would include electric and combustion models. Also in September 2022, the state-owned Banco Bicentenario gave “the first go-ahead” to the financing for the purchase of Iranian vehicles, at prices ranging between 12,000 and 16,000 dollars.
From then on, the fate of this company seems tied to the management of the Ministry of Transport. The Aiko Motors website includes a banner with the logos of this public entity and its flagship social program, the Great Venezuelan Transport Mission; the name of Aiko Motors, along with those of the Iranian brands Saipa and Ikco, is on a huge advertising banner hanging from the Ministry of Transport headquarters tower; in the lobby of the new Aiko headquarters, in the Galipán Business Center in eastern Caracas, a white flag of the Great Venezuelan Transport Mission is displayed along with those of Venezuela and Iran.
But if the regimes of the Ayatollahs and Chavismo have never been shy about showing their closeness, and Tehran has established itself as a primary supplier to Caracas of even sensitive military technology, why would a private company, Aiko Motors, appear as an intermediary channel for a simple export-import of cars that could perfectly have been done between States that are political allies?
The founders and original directors of Aiko Motors, Carlos Alberto Arteaga Dorta and Roberto Antonio Moncada Viña, decided to sell the company two years after its creation in 2020. The business was not making a profit and “an interested buyer appeared,” Moncada told Armando.info . He said that the venture not only did not prosper, but it was difficult to get off the ground in the midst of the pandemic. “We didn’t even manage to open a bank account,” he says to illustrate this difficulty, while stressing that both he and Arteaga are now completely detached from the company.
The acquisition, sale and marketing of “all kinds of automobiles, as well as their accessories, components, auto parts and maintenance, repair, bodywork and painting” were some of the activities recorded in Aiko’s business file at the time of its incorporation on October 20, 2020. Also the “import and export of vehicles”, but no evidence of car purchases abroad was found during its first two years of existence. Not to mention Iranian vehicles.
The shareholders’ book certifies that the transfer of 100% of Mocada and Arteaga’s stake in Aiko Motors to Yessica Yulieth Rodriguez Godoy took place on August 20, 2022. From then on, the company’s numbers began to move. The financial statements for April 2024 indicate that the company’s net profits went from 362.19 bolivars ($70) in December 2021, still under the administration of the founders, to 7.7 million bolivars or $196,000, at the official exchange rate at the time, in December 2023. Also that year, it reported sales of 70.2 million bolivars for the first time (more than $1.8 million at the time).
Other signs of growth found in the company’s file were the capital increase and the change of business headquarters from a rented house in the Santa Monica urbanization - a middle-class neighborhood in the southwest of Caracas - to the modern Torre C of the Galipán Center in El Rosal, the "financial district" of the Venezuelan capital. Also in August 2024, the firm decided to open a branch in the facilities of Automotores Ipsfa (acronym for the Institute of Social Security of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces), in Fuerte Tiuna, the largest Venezuelan military installation, near the former headquarters of Aiko. The authorized repair shop for the Ikco and Saipa brands operates there.
In fact, the main Aiko Motors showroom is not in its own dealership, as usual, but in the Ministry of Transport tower, on Francisco de Miranda Avenue. Although the company is updated in the National Registry of Contractors until 2025, the names of Arteaga Dorta and Moncada Viña continue to appear as owners in the corresponding file, despite the fact that in August 2022 they sold all the shares to Yessica Rodriguez Godoy, as stated in the commercial file.
On its social media , Aiko Motors defines Iranian cars as “the new kings of the road” and boasts of the opening of authorized workshops, the sale of original spare parts and the alliance with nine dealers throughout the country. Imported Iranian cars are not only offered in the capital but also in Aragua, Bolívar, Carabobo, Lara and Monagas. A rapid expansion against the current of a chronically contracted automotive market.
Mission to import and sell
The international trade database Importgenius does not record imports of Iranian sedans to Venezuela between January 2022 and July 2024. However, the search engine 52wmb.com reveals that, in January 2023, Aiko Motors CA imported a batch of cars, weighing almost two tons, from the Zamyad Company of Tehran. The shipments coincide with the arrival date of the first cars from the automotive agreement signed between Iran and Venezuela.
The international trade database 52wmb.com reveals that the Zamyad Company of Tehran, Iran, registered two shipments of vehicles weighing almost two tons to Aiko Motors of Venezuela on January 30, 2023. Credit: 52wmb
The international trade database 52wmb.com reveals that the Zamyad Company of Tehran, Iran, registered two shipments of vehicles weighing almost two tons to Aiko Motors of Venezuela on January 30, 2023.
In two decades, the governments of Chavez and Maduro have signed alliances with other governments or with the private sector under the guise of joint ventures or so-called strategic and/or commercial alliances. However, in the specific case of the importation of cars from Iran, the name of Aiko Motors has not been made public as a partner of the Venezuelan State in that operation, nor as an operational or executing party of the binational agreement between Iran and Venezuela, both subject to international sanctions that, for this reason, often resort to alternative circuits for their commercial exchange.
Records of Iranian car imports to Venezuela began a decade ago, according to the United Nations Comtrade database. But between 2013 and 2014, Iran exported just 313 units to Venezuela, worth about $5 million. According to Harvard’s Atlas of Economic Complexity , sedans accounted for 22% of Tehran’s total exports to Caracas in 2014.
After an eight-year hiatus, Venezuela resumed importing motor vehicles from Iran in 2022: 307 vehicles that year for a total of $4.8 million. The Comtrade NU figure coincides with the first shipment of a total of 3,000 Iranian vehicles contemplated in the bilateral agreement signed by Maduro and Raisí. In the case of Iran, despite also being subject to international sanctions, especially from the United States, its automotive industry, led by the Iran Khodro and Saipa Corp factories, enjoys an exception that allows them to operate in the international market and even register growth in their operations .
Part of the Iranian cars promoted by the Great Transport Mission of Venezuela were assigned to the state-owned Conviasa for land transport service. “Conviasa activates exclusive land transport service.” Fleet of 10 units May 2024. Credit: Ministry of Transport.
Part of the Iranian cars promoted by the Great Transport Mission of Venezuela were assigned to the state-owned Conviasa for land transport service. “Conviasa activates exclusive land transport service.” Fleet of 10 units May 2024. Credit: Photo courtesy.
Women at the wheel
At the same time as he acquired Aiko Motors, Rodriguez Godoy opened a company of the same name in Panama. On August 19, 2024, he registered the corporation Aiko Motors together with Panamanians Fernando José Troya Pérez, Bairon Joel Villar Hernandez, Juan Felipe Troya Pérez, and Venezuelan Darkys Jineeth Gil Teran, who in September 2018 had imported vehicles from the United States in his name, according to the international trade database Importgenius .
Although Rodríguez Godoy owns 100% of the shares of Aiko Motors, since she bought the company she shares the board of directors with Karilú Raquel Molina Mendoza Valenzuela, a merchant who has several companies registered in her name in Venezuela and Panama.
With a percentage distribution of 10-90, Rodríguez Godoy shares a partnership with Mendoza Valenzuela in another company, Innova Technology 2022, CA, which offers “Management, Business Professional and Administrative services.” It was registered in Caracas in 2022, the same year that Rodriguez Godoy took control of Aiko Motors.
But Armando.Info found that the office in the Las Mercedes neighborhood of Caracas identified in business directories as the headquarters of Innova Technology has been home to a uniform manufacturing company for two years.
Innova Technology, owned by Yessica Rodríguez Godoy and Karilú Mendoza Valenzuela, does not exist in the Mercedes office in Caracas, as indicated by the commercial registers. Instead, it operates a uniform factory. Credit: Armando.info.
Aiko Motors CA and Innova Technology CA in Venezuela are not the only firms that tie the entrepreneurial duo together. In Panama, they registered the company Domhanda Trading SA, dedicated to "foreign trade transportation and import and export processing of all types of merchandise." Although founded in 2014, both Rodríguez Godoy and Mendoza Valenzuela appear as director and secretary, respectively, as of August 2024.
According to the record of an extraordinary meeting recorded in the commercial file, Karilú Mendoza resigned from her position as director of Aiko Motors on August 28 of this year. She was then replaced by Carlos Eduardo Ravelo Molina who, according to his profile on the social network LinkedIn, had been serving as coordinator of Aiko Motors since 2023.
Karilú Mendoza Valenzuela, just 39 years old, has a catalog of importing companies under her control in Panama.
In Caracas, apart from Innova Technology 2022, Mendoza Valenzuela appears in the National Registry of Contractors (RNC) as director of Inversiones Ibelfood, CA, whose address is in an apartment building on Avenida Intercomunal El Valle, southwest of Caracas, and provides services in the Fuerte Tiuna dining room and the Dr. Vicente Salias Sanoja Military Hospital .
In Panama , Mendoza Valenzuela is listed as director of Arion Buceo & Logística SA; Servicios Aéreos FSV CA and Importadora Mendoza Valenzuela SA, the latter with a homonymous company in Venezuela.
Aiko Motors is also involved in local motorsports. It was the supplier of Saipa Quik model cars for the National Championship held in April 2024 at the Turagua circuit, Aragua state. In October, it sponsored the Aiko Cup for the Fourth Validation of the Championship. Credit: Screenshot from the motummagazine.com website.
Armando Info requested an interview with Yessica Rodríguez Godoy but, as of the closing of this story, had not received a response. An attempt was also made to obtain the version of the outgoing director, Karilú Mendoza Valenzuela, and the incoming director, Carlos Eduardo Ravelo, with identical results.Meanwhile, fuel does not seem to be lacking for Aiko Motors, which continues to sponsor motoring events, participate in fairs and establish alliances with dealers in cities in the interior of the country to keep the no longer so accessible Iranian cars rolling.
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