The "Twelve Apostles" were a group of Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

n businessmen close to President Carlos Andrés Pérez

Carlos Andrés Pérez

Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez , also known as CAP and often referred to as El Gocho , was a Venezuelan politician, President of Venezuela from 1974 to 1979 and again from 1989 to 1993. His first presidency was known as the Saudi Venezuela due to its economic and social prosperity thanks to...

. The term was coined by Duno (1975) and became part of the Venezuelan political language. The group included Diego Arria

Diego Arria

Diego Arria Salicetti is a Venezuelan politician, diplomat, former Venezuelan Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the United Nations and President of the Security Council . He was Governor of the Federal District of Caracas in the mid-1970s...

 and Pedro Tinoco

Pedro Tinoco

Pedro Tinoco was Venezuela's Minister of Finance from 1969 to 1972, under President Rafael Caldera. He was then Chairman of the Board of Banco Latino from 1975, and one of Carlos Andrés Pérez's "Twelve Apostles"....

 and Carmelo Lauria. Of the various family groups involved, the Cisneros Group of Gustavo Cisneros

Gustavo Cisneros

Gustavo A. Cisneros Rendiles is a Venezuelan media mogul of Cuban descent. He is among the world's richest men according to Forbes magazine, which estimated his fortune at $4.2 billion in 2010 The New York Times calls Cisneros, "one of Latin America’s most powerful figures" and says he and his...

 was the most successful by the 1990s.

The links between Pérez and the apostles go back to Pérez' struggle for the Democratic Action

Democratic Action

Democratic Action is a centrist Venezuelan political party established in 1941. The party and its antecedents played an important role in the early years of Venezuelan democracy, and led the government during Venezuela's first democratic period...

 presidential candidacy in 1973. Lacking a power base in the party, Pérez allied himself with businessmen outside it. After he attained the presidency, the names of these businessmen appeared on "many of the financially most lucrative contracts awarded in the period 1974-78, including the Guri Dam

Guri Dam

The Guri Dam is a concrete gravity and embankment dam in Bolívar State, Venezuela on the Caroni River. Its official name is Central Hidroeléctrica Simón Bolívar...

, Cementos Caribe (the licensing of a new cement factory), the new Zulia steel mill, the Pentacom petrochemical project, and the construction of Parque Central

Parque Central Complex

The Parque Central Complex is a housing, commercial and cultural development, implemented by Centro Simón Bolívar and located in the urbanization of the county in the center of the city of Caracas, Venezuela adjacent to Paseo Vargas....

(the largest shopping mall/office complex in South America at the time), among many others..."

Books

• Duno, Pedro. 1975. Los Doce Apóstoles: Proceso a la Degradación Política. Valencia: Vadell Hermanos Editores.