By Vivian Sequera and Deisy Buitrago
CARACAS (Reuters) -Venezuela's&nbsp;President Nicolas&nbsp;Maduro&nbsp;on Monday accepted the resignation of the country's powerful&nbsp;oil&nbsp;minister&nbsp;following the detention of at least six high level&nbsp;officials&nbsp;amid a&nbsp;corruption&nbsp;probe focused on state-run company PDVSA and the judiciary.
Tareck El Aissami had said earlier on Monday on Twitter he would resign to fully support the investigations. The probe especially touches PDVSA, which is supervised by the&nbsp;oil&nbsp;ministry.
Arresting government&nbsp;officials&nbsp;for&nbsp;corruption&nbsp;is rare in Venezuela, a country that rights groups such as Transparency International have described as opaque.
Maduro&nbsp;did not immediately name a&nbsp;replacement for El Aissami, who has served as vice president, and as a&nbsp;minister&nbsp;and mayor over the past two decades.
Maduro, who has led previous&nbsp;corruption&nbsp;sweeps, said in televised remarks that his government is committed to "going to the root" of&nbsp;corruption, calling the probe which began last year "professional, scientific and disciplined".
Appearing alongside heavyweights from his cabinet and the ruling party,&nbsp;Maduro&nbsp;added he plans to restructure PDVSA, but did not provide details.
El Aissami, who had been in his post since 2020, is under U.S. sanctions for alleged connections to drug trafficking, which he denies.
The anti-graft&nbsp;police&nbsp;arrested a mayor, two judges and three high-level government&nbsp;officials, at least two of whom are connected with PDVSA, state television and sources familiar with the matter said earlier on Monday.
The sources also said that at least 20 lower level&nbsp;officials&nbsp;at PDVSA have been&nbsp;arrested in recent days. The sources declined to be named due to fear of retaliation.
Neither PDVSA nor the prosecutor's office responded to requests for comment.
The&nbsp;arrested&nbsp;officials&nbsp;include Colonel Antonio Perez, a former vice president in charge of supply and trade at PDVSA, and Colonel Samuel Testamarck, general manager of PDVSA's maritime arm PDV Marina, the sources said.
The PDVSA&nbsp;arrests were linked to an investigation into&nbsp;oil&nbsp;cargoes leaving the country without due payment to the company, which also has led to other executives being suspended from their posts, one of the sources said.
PDVSA suffered heavy losses last year as tankers left Venezuela without proper payments being made for cargo. New PDVSA boss Pedro Tellechea ordered an audit and suspended&nbsp;oil&nbsp;supply contracts shortly after taking over the role in January.
Also&nbsp;arrested, state television said on Monday, were Mayor Pedro Hernandez of Las Tejerias, an area hit by floods that killed dozens late last year, and Joselit Ramirez, the former head of&nbsp;Venezuela's&nbsp;crypto-asset watchdog.
Ramirez had led since 2018 the body that issues&nbsp;Venezuela's&nbsp;official digital coin, the petro, but had been dismissed from the role, the official gazette said on Saturday. Pro-government newspaper Ultimas Noticias reported he is under investigation for cases linked to PDVSA.
Judges Cristobal Cornieles and Jose Marquez Garcia were also detained, state TV reported, without giving further details.
The&nbsp;arrests are the largest recent crackdown on alleged PDVSA&nbsp;corruption.
In 2017, several executives and two former presidents of the company were&nbsp;arrested, while in 2018 authorities detained a number of executives for administrative irregularities.
(Reporting by Vivian Sequera, Mayela Armas, and Deisy Buitrago in Caracas, Mircely Guanipa in Maracay and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Writing by Sarah Morland and Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Josie Kao, Rosalba O'Brien and Sonali Paul)

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