March 20 (Reuters) – Venezuelan oil businessman Wilmer Ruperti has been held by authorities since Thursday after the country’s intelligence police requested a meeting with him, his lawyers said on Friday.

“He was supposed to be released at 9:00 this morning, and then 1:00 p.m., and then tonight. Looks like they are detaining him another night,” the law firm Winston & Strawn told Reuters on Friday night.

The South American nation’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ruperti was asked to meet with Venezuela’s intelligence police at about 1 p.m. on Thursday, the law firm said. His security detail was detained and released, but Ruperti remained in custody as of Friday and authorities had provided no justification for his detention, the firm said.

“We are concerned for his well-being,” the firm said.

It was not immediately clear why Venezuelan authorities were holding Ruperti.

Ruperti, a shipping and oil magnate close to Venezuela’s socialist governments, rose to prominence after helping move fuel to the country during a 2002-2003 strike at state oil company PDVSA, a role that cemented his ties to then-President Hugo Chavez’s administration. 

In more recent years, his Geneva-based Maroil Trading became a key exporter of Venezuelan petroleum coke under a contract with state-owned PDVSA, though that business later became embroiled in a dispute over payments and contract terms.

Reuters reported in 2023 that PDVSA had suspended deliveries to Maroil amid an audit of receivables. 

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Kylie Madry, Sarah Morland, Iñigo Alexander and William Mallard)