ST. JOHN’S – The appointment of an official administrator at BOI Bank in Antigua and Barbuda has once again drawn attention to the wider financial network linked to Venezuelan banker Víctor Vargas and the earlier collapse of Banco del Orinoco N.V. in Curaçao.
According to reports circulating within regional financial circles, Antigua’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC) appointed an official administrator for BOI Bank on May 7, 2026, placing the institution under regulatory supervision. While the FSRC has not yet publicly released a detailed statement explaining the intervention, the measure resembles earlier emergency actions taken against banks tied to Vargas’ former regional financial empire.
BOI Bank formed part of the broader BOD Financial Group controlled by Vargas, which at one point operated banking institutions across Venezuela, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Antigua, and Curaçao.
The intervention immediately triggered comparisons to the 2019 collapse of Banco del Orinoco in Curaçao, one of the most significant offshore banking failures ever experienced in the Dutch Caribbean.
Banco del Orinoco, which operated from Handelskade in Willemstad, was placed under emergency administration by the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten in September 2019 before being declared bankrupt shortly afterward.
Court and bankruptcy documents show that Banco del Orinoco mainly served Venezuelan clients and held approximately 7,200 account holders at the time of its collapse.
The bankruptcy left depositors facing claims totaling more than 1.4 billion guilders and sparked years of legal disputes, creditor meetings, and international investigations.
Investigators and court-appointed receiver Michiel Gorsira later described longstanding payment problems at Banco del Orinoco, with hundreds of account holders already filing lawsuits years before the bank failed. According to court records, the bank repeatedly blamed correspondent banking issues and anti-money laundering compliance restrictions for delayed payments to clients.
The Banco del Orinoco collapse was followed by regulatory actions against other Vargas-linked institutions throughout the region, including AllBank in Panama and Bancamérica in the Dominican Republic
BOI Bank in Antigua was also part of the same interconnected network.
Regional financial observers note that the latest intervention in Antigua revives broader questions about the long-term fallout from the dismantling of the BOD financial empire and the continued exposure of offshore banking jurisdictions in the Caribbean to cross-border financial risks tied to Venezuela.
At this stage, authorities in Antigua have not publicly stated whether BOI Bank faces liquidity problems, operational restrictions, restructuring, or possible liquidation proceedings.
The lack of detailed public communication resembles the early stages of the Banco del Orinoco crisis in Curaçao, when regulators initially moved cautiously to avoid destabilizing depositors and correspondent banking relationships.
For Curaçao, the developments are particularly sensitive because Banco del Orinoco became one of the island’s most controversial financial scandals, drawing international attention to supervision, anti-money laundering compliance, and the risks connected to Venezuelan offshore banking activity.