wonder how much of that was US foreign aidThe standoff between the two leaders is reverberating beyond Venezuela, with some 50 countries joining the U.S. in backing Mr. Guaidó while others side with Mr. Maduro. What was once Latin America’s richest economy is starving, its oil sales have dwindled and citizens are suffering through dayslong power outages and shortages of basic goods.
Gold sales, U.S. and other officials say, are one of the government’s final financial lifelines.
The gold that arrived in Entebbe passed through African Gold Refinery Ltd., or AGR, in a compound about 500 yards from the old runway before being exported to the Middle East, Ugandan police say.
The refinery started operations in 2015. Some of the gold it processed was allegedly smuggled from conflict-torn eastern Congo and other African nations, according to officials with Ugandan police, the country’s Financial Intelligence Authority and regional smugglers.
Gold from AGR has made its way into supply chains at U.S. companies including General Motors Co. , General Electric Co. and Starbucks Corp. , the firms’ filings for 2018 with the Securities and Exchange Commission show, despite U.S. measures to discourage use of so-called conflict minerals from Congo.
GM prohibits suppliers from using forced or involuntary labor or engage in corrupt business practices, a spokesman says. GE declined to comment. Starbucks didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Would make great chess pieces.
A U.S. Treasury Department official says: “Treasury is committed to holding accountable those operating corruptly in Venezuela’s gold sector.”
Spokesmen for Venezuela’s central bank and Information Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Maduro government has said little publicly about its gold sales and routinely dismisses sanctions and accusations of wrongdoing as part of an international campaign to besmirch Caracas.
Mr. Goetz’s gold
AGR was founded in 2014 by Alain Goetz, 54, a Belgian businessman who has worked more than three decades in the African gold trade.
More at link.
Could be the cheap beer talking tonight though (Diana, I couldn't afford the good stuff until Friday, the van broke down lol).
I am far more worried about governments, including the USA, being able to track, tax, surveil, prosecute, and politicize my every financial transaction I make. gold is the currency of freedom. Printed, fiat, centrally-controlled money is the currency of statists and marxists
This would be where the Mission Impossible Force hatches a complicated plan to divert the gold into a fund to rebuild Venezuela after the Communists flee, leaving the corrupt Commies with gold-plated lead bars. If there were such a force.
Yes, because freedom loving leaders know that being able to track every transaction and every bit of money keeps us safe.
Any other bright ideas?
Gold was also money for a free people. The government confiscated somewhere around 20,000 tons criminalizing a basic element of the periodic table.
Just because something or some thing can be used in bad ways by bad people doesn’t really mean anything, if you stop and think about it. Or is there some greater truth we’re supposed to draw from that?
I hear Shirley Bassey singing “Goldfinger”
“He loves Gold!”
Only gold,
He loves gold!
Maduro won this round. The gold went to Entebbe, then on to the Mid-east to the buyers. He won this round. Too bad we couldn’t have intercepted it somehow. Perhaps our deep state isn’t yet on board with Trump’s policies.
Wow, how silly can you be?
Two minutes with a propane torch, available at any Walmart or hardware store anywhere in the world and any markings on a gold bar would be completely gone.
But, if you’re surprised by the authorities you use what ever is at hand. Even then a heavy blunt instrument would be better than any scratching or cutting implement to remove identifying markings on gold.
Interesting how this gold could sit in the Venezuelan Treasury for 75 years until a Socialist government comes to power.
Socialism arises in a country rich in natural resources, a country much more wealthy than its neighbors, and within a decade this new Socialist government has so impoverished its people that they are reduced to eating their pets and rats. And finally the Socialist dictator is selling off the countries gold reserves to keep his army fed.
wonder how much of that was US foreign aidProbably be stacked next to all that Aztec gold that disappeared from Spain in the 1930s.
Won’t be the first time the Venezuelans get skrewed by a socialist regime.
All that gold from Venezuela’s
in a bank in downtown Istanbul
in Erdogan’s family’s name.
So if you’re thinking about Venezuela,
it don’t matter how many Bolivars you got,
toilet paper’s the road to fame.
Pretty sure it is not lost
(My British accent is not as good as it used to be)