Alejandro Betancourt López
Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López is a Venezuelan businessman who is Chairman and CEO of Derwick Associates, an engineering, procurement and construction company. He is the leader of the international investment group O'Hara Administration, and a director of Pacific Exploration & Production Corporation, a publicly held Canadian company and a leading explorer and producer of natural gas and crude oil which operates in various Latin American countries. Betancourt controls 19.95% of Pacific Exploration & Production. He is also president of Hawkers, a Spanish sunglasses company.
Personal life and early career
Education
Betancourt has a double major in Economics and Business Administration from the Suffolk University of Massachusetts, United States and an Executive MBA from Oxford University.Early career
Betancourt started his career at a company specializing in the energy sector and in the exploration, production and trade of oil and its derivatives. The company has presence in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, South America and Africa. There, he served as business manager for Latin America.He later worked at Guruceaga Group, a company dedicated to international trade in goods, finance, real estate and farm, in which he was manager of new business. He also worked at BGB Energy, a company that was responsible for representing, in joint venture with the old GESCA GAS in Venezuela, international corporation Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
Personal life
Betancourt is a descendant of Hermógenes López, the former acting president of Venezuela.In 2024, Alejandro Betancourt was appointed Knight of the Order del Camino de Santiago.
Companies and affiliations
Derwick
Betancourt is the co-founder, along with Pedro Trebbau López, of Derwick Associates Corp., a Venezuelan company working in the energy sector. He has also co-founded eponymous companies in Panama, the United States, Spain, and Barbados.Since it started operations in 2003, the company has obtained eleven contracts for the construction of power plants in Venezuela; five contracts awarded by Electricidad de Caracas, five by Petroleos de Venezuela SA, and one by Corporación Venezolana de Guayana.
As co-founder of Derwick Associates, Betancourt has been linked to corruption scandals in Venezuela. Derwick was reportedly awarded government projects despite having limited experience in the electricity sector. Derwick denies the allegations.
Thor Leonardo Halvorssen Mendoza sued Derwick and Betancourt. Banco Banesco and Derwick Associates claimed that the accusations were false; the lawsuit was dismissed.
On 10 September 2024 the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Zürich, Switzerland, sent a request to the Spanish Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to join an international investigation into a money-laundering linked to funds from PDVSA and the Venezuelan National Treasury. On 17 June 2025 the Office of the Prosecution Ministry filed a complaint against six Venezuelan businessmen, including Betancourt.
According to the investigation, between 2010 and 2019 the defendants allegedly diverted more than €3.3 billion in PDVSA funds into personal accounts. The document submitted by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office describes that the money was transferred through companies under different names and in different countries until reaching the defendants’ accounts, and that a substantial amount was invested in Spain in real state and other assets amounting to at least 42 million euros. The Public Prosecutor’s Office has stated that Venezuelan officials bribed to facilitate the diversion admitted their responsibility before U.S. authorities, were found guilty and sentenced.
In September 2025, by order of judge Santiago Pedraz, who is investigating the contracts awarded to Derwick, Betancourt was detained in London and released a few hours later after a videoconference. The Spanish police's Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit searched his estate El Alamín. Before the Audiencia Nacional, Betancourt declared that Venezuelan courts had already tried and exonerated him for the same charges.
On 11 November 2025, Judge Pedraz lifted the secrecy order on the investigation in which Alejandro Betancourt is charged.
Pacific Exploration & Production
In May 2015, O'Hara Administration, an international investment group led by Alejandro Betancourt, became the largest shareholder of the petroleum company Pacific Exploration & Production Corporation by controlling 19.5 percent of its shares.By the end of August 2015 Betancourt increased his control over the shares of Pacific to 19.95% and was appointed director and member of the board. Betancourt publicly shared plans to expand the operations of the company and enter new markets to grow.
BDK Financial Group
In June 2015 the BDK Financial Group, of which Alejandro Betancourt is a major shareholder, inaugurated the Banque de Dakar headquarters in Senegal. The objective of the financial group is to offer banking services in French-speaking Africa. In March 2016 the group appointed Alfredo Sáenz Abad as president of the bank.O’Hara Administration
Betancourt leads the O’Hara administration group of international investors. The other key executive of the group as portfolio manager and director is Orlando J. Alvarado.The group currently holds 19.95% of Pacific Exploration & Production Corporation shares. In August 2016, O’Hara together with the Mexican investor Fernando Chico Pardo presented a restructuring bid for Pacific worth $575 million. Betancourt fought off potential shareholders in a bid "to gain control of the company themselves", though when a deal with Mexico's ALFA fell through, Betancourt and his group lost 70% of their investment.
Hawkers
As of October 2016 O’Hara together with the founders of the Spanish social network Tuenti, Felix Ruiz and Hugo Arévalo led a financing round of 50 million euros for the Spanish sunglasses startup company Hawkers. In November 2016 Hawkers appointed Alejandro Betancourt as its new president.Betancourt is currently the largest shareholder of Hawkers. He has overseen the company’s new plan for expansion as well as its adjustment to the recession in Spain.