longer.blue

“ A New York Times investigation found that after President Trump toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and lifted his own prior ban on Venezuelan gold, the administration rushed to broker gold-trading deals in an industry still riddled with the very corruption and gang violence Trump said he was fighting, and now hundreds of millions of dollars of that gold sits unsold because international refiners won’t touch it. The first deal went to Trafigura, one of the world’s largest trading houses, which won a yearlong right to buy gold from Venezuela’s state-owned Minerven and flew $100 million worth to the US within hours of signing, even though gold began flowing before the company or independent auditors had ever visited the mines. Reporters found that Minerven’s mines sit in gang-controlled territory where local miners and brigades pay roughly 20 percent of their gold to the Tren de Guayana gang as protection money, a practice so entrenched it’s locally known as “el sistema,” meaning at least some of the gold now imported into the US is tied to organized crime. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum personally helped broker the deal and brought bars of the gold to a White House celebration with Trump, even as Venezuela’s own interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, was reportedly skeptical but had little leverage to push back since she depends on Washington to stay in power.”. via Aaron Parnas newsletter