Venezuela sues ‘cyberterror’ forex site in US

Venezuela’s Central Bank has filed suit in US court charging that the website DolarToday, which focuses on the black market rate for the bolivar, is harming and destabilizing the country’s economy.

The suit filed Friday claims that “DolarToday fabricates black market exchange rates that it publishes via the company’s website and smartphone applications,” law firm Squire Patton Boggs said in a statement.

The rates on the website do not represent any official Venezuelan fiscal policy, the firm added, without confirming which federal court is handling the suit.

DolarToday is incorporated in the eastern US state of Delaware, but based in the Colombian city of Cucuta.

President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government deems “the use of technology from outside the country to weaken their nation’s economy a form of cyberterrorism,” the statement stressed.

“The lawsuit alleges that DolarToday is damaging Venezuela’s economy by exacerbating inflationary pressures, diminishing the purchasing power of the Venezuelan people and undermining the authority of the Central Bank.”

The suit does not seek to close the website, but rather for it to cease publishing Venezuela’s black market exchange rate.

On Friday, the site showed the black market rate at 820 bolivars to the dollar -- 130 times the lowest official rate for food and medicine. The site is blocked in Venezuela.

Venezuela is heading into legislative elections December 6 amid a severe economic crisis and public disenchantment that have sent Maduro’s approval ratings to 20 percent.

Maduro’s government, battered by falling oil prices, is having little success reining in soaring inflation, chronic shortages and coping with what the IMF predicts will be an economic contraction of 10 percent this year.