We have an old saying in the intelligence world, follow the money!
A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News
Tuesday that 20 tons of gold have been set aside in the Venezuelan central bank
for loading. Worth some
$840 million, the gold represents about 20 percent of its holdings of the metal
in Venezuela, the person said. He provided no further information on
plans for those bars.
With
strongman President Nicolas Maduro losing control of the country’s
already-scant finances and reserves thanks to U.S. sanctions, who can put his
hands on the nation’s
estimated 200 tons of gold at home and abroad has become a key question.
The nation owes billions to its patrons Russia and China as well as
bondholders, and also needs hard currency to buy food for its starving people.
Venezuela
has been trying for years to increase its gold reserves by encouraging mining,
putting the military in charge of vast territories that yield the precious
metal. State gold processor Minerven melts the ore into bars, which military
aircraft take to airbases around Caracas. Soldiers regularly unload it into
armored vehicles bound for the central bank and beyond.
The
U.S. has been working to put National Assembly head Juan Guaido, who says he is
the nation’s rightful president, in charge of Venezuelan finances and starve
the regime. Last week, the
Bank of England denied Maduro officials’ request to withdraw $1.2 billion of
gold stored there after top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State
Michael Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, lobbied their U.K.
counterparts to cut off the regime from its overseas assets.
On Monday, a plane belonging to Nordwind
Airlines, a popular Russian charter operator based in Moscow, landed at the
international airport near Caracas, according to flight tracking website
FlightRadar24. A Nordwind spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on the
purpose of the flight. Boy, I smell the globalist thieves at work.
Finance
Minister Simon Zerpa declined to comment on the nation’s gold and also said
there was no Russian plane at Simon Bolivar International Airport.
“I’m
going to start bringing Russian and Turkish airplanes every week so everybody
gets scared,” he said.
Russia’s
Foreign Ministry has no information about the charter jet, spokeswoman Maria
Zakharova said in a message Wednesday. There are no plans to evacuate Russians
from Venezuela, she said.
Kremlin Support
“Nordwind
does a rather large number of these flights to order,” said Oleg Panteleyev,
head of AviaPort, a Moscow aviation consultant. “As a rule, there aren’t a lot
of orders for Venezuela, so this country can’t be called a popular destination
among Russians,” though there’s no official ban on chartering an aircraft
there, he said.
The
Kremlin has lavished support on the Latin American country in recent years,
making it one of the biggest recipients of Russian loans and investment and an
outpost of Moscow’s influence in a region dominated by the U.S. But Russia has
been reticent about committing more capital, especially because opposition
officials have said they might not honor all the Maduro government’s
obligations.
Russia
vowed to “do everything” to protect Maduro against U.S. efforts to oust him as
the Trump administration issued new sanctions against Venezuela on Monday,
without elaborating what steps it would take.
A top Russian finance ministry
official, meanwhile, warned that Venezuela could have trouble meeting payments
under a $3.15 billion debt-rescheduling deal reached in 2017. The next
installment of $100 million is due in March. The ministry said later that
Russia expects Venezuela to meet its obligations, according to an emailed
statement.
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