Caracas
Maduro wants gold: The Venezuelan opposition is begging the Bank of England not to give President Nicolás Maduro the 14 tons of Venezuelan bullion—worth $550 million—sitting in its vaults, saying the leftist strongman will either steal it or use it to finance a crackdown on dissent. With Venezuelan oil production at half its 2015 level, thanks to mismanagement and sanctions, Maduro has turned to gold to finance his government—even encouraging dangerous wildcat mining in the Orinoco region. Two opposition leaders in exile, Julio Borges and Carlos Vecchio, wrote the bank this week to warn that releasing Venezuela’s gold to Maduro would breach the BoE’s legal obligations to pre
vent money laundering and corruption.