© Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg
Citigroup Inc. has settled a Venezuela gold swap transaction and
plans to sell the metal it received as collateral while also depositing about $260 million into a U.S. account formerly controlled by President Nicolas Maduro's central bank, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.
After Venezuela's Central Bank missed a March 11 deadline to buy back gold from Citigroup for nearly $1.1 billion as part of a financing agreement signed in 2015,
the difference in price from when the gold was acquired to current levels will be deposited into an account, said the people, who asked not to be named speaking about a private transaction.
The development represents another financial blow to the embattled Maduro regime.
It won't be able to access the cash deposited in the U.S. account and could ultimately see the money be handed over to the parallel government being formed opposition leader Juan Guaido.While Maduro has managed to maintain a stranglehold on power on the ground -- he still controls the military, the courts and government bureaucracy -- Guaido is leveraging the support he has from dozens of countries to slowly seize Venezuela's financial assets abroad. Guaido, who's seeking to topple the autocratic Maduro,
has wrested control of Houston-based refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp from Petroleos de Venezuela SA and is also taking over diplomatic real estate. More importantly, he has gained access to cash, which he's vowing to use to relieve a humanitarian crisis at home.
Comment: RFE/RL have made the Lesin file available here. See also:
- Nothing new: Washington autopsy files reveal RT founder Lesin sustained broken bone in neck
- DC lawyers move to delay deadline for turning over Lesin autopsy records to RFE/RL
- Did RT founder Lesin die during an FBI interrogation?
In their coverage so far RFE/RL has been pushing the possibility that the Kremlin did it. But if that was even remotely plausible, you would think the U.S. political/intelligence establishment would be milking that possibility for all it's worth. The fact that they're not suggests either that Lesin's death WAS an accident, or that they don't want any additional scrutiny. If the latter is the case, perhaps the third article linked to above is relevant.