Nicolás Maduro's regime has sold nearly 14 tonnes of gold from the Central Bank's reserves over the past two weeks.

Nicolás Maduro's regime has managed to sell about 570 million USD of gold from the central bank's reserves over the last two weeks., avoid the US Treasury's sanctions to freeze the badets of the Chavista administration, according to people familiar with the subject.

Caracas sold near 9.7 tons of gold on May 10 and another 4 tons three days latersaid these people. Operations helped the bank's total reserves will fall to at least $ 7.9 billion over 29 years, according to the data provided by the monetary authority. The revenue will be used partly to finance imports via the country's foreign trade office, said one of the residents.

A press officer from a central bank did not immediately respond to requests for comments on sales.

Venezuela has sold 23 tons of gold since early April, defying an economic blockade aimed at ending the lucrative trade that Maduro uses to keep the military loyal to his regime. Last month, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury included Venezuela's central bank in its list of sanctioned entities.

Maduro sells gold to companies in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, sanctions excluding its increasingly authoritarian regime from the global financial system. While maintaining absolute control over the power on the ground, including the military and government bureaucracy, the Leader of the Opposition, Juan Guaidó uses the support of dozens of countries to slowly seize Venezuelan financial badets abroad.

With information from Bloomberg