Who is Alejandro Betancourt, colourful oil baron behind US-Venezuela oil deal?

President Donald Trump has called the deal granting the US control of strategic Venezuelan oil fields "the biggest in history".

North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep), a company little known outside the South American country, will oversee the production and sale of 17 oil fields containing about 65bn barrels of crude.

And at the heart of it is Alejandro Betancourt López, the Venezuelan oil baron who heads the Barbados-registered firm.

The 46-year-old has a history of doing business with the Venezuelan government since the time of the late President Hugo Chávez.

But he has also found himself under investigation in five different countries. He has previously denied wrongdoing and has never been convicted of a crime.

So who is the fixer picked to deliver on Trump's oil abundance plan?

Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt López was born in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas in February 1980 into a middle-class family.

A graduate of Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, he is estimated to be worth around $2.6bn (£1.9bn).