United States, worried about the sale of Venezuelan gold: "Maduro steals people's resources to pay the Russian intervention?"

"Maduro not only needs the support of foreign paramilitaries to keep the last traces of a defeated dictatorship, but he also announced that he was seizing Venezuelan badets in a complete plane. people's resources to pay the Russian intervention? " "wrote John Bolton on his Twitter account.

In February, a third shipment of 11 tons of monetary gold is expected, depending on the source.

If materialized, the government will have sold 29 tons and reduced Venezuela's international reserves to a minimum of eight years in two months, which are in bullion of maximum purity, according to data of the Central Bank.

The US government has warned bankers, traders and global companies to avoid negotiating gold sales with the Maduro government, and has imposed sanctions on Venezuela's national oil company, PDVSA , in order to limit its purchases and sales of crude in the United States.

Funds raised through gold trading would be used for purchases of external inputs. BCV in the week informed the bank that it was to sell euros to companies of "strategic sectors" in order to import raw materials to produce; and these allocations in foreign currency will be in cash, added banking and industrial sources.

This is the first time that the Maduro government has been offering euros to industries outside the control system in place for nearly two decades. The measure comes when the government is struggling to import raw materials directly, as it has been doing since 2015 because of sanctions imposed by the United States.

According to Central Bank data, of the 150 tonnes of gold that the issuer had at the beginning of last year, there were about 132 tonnes in November.

Part of these bullots are at the Bank of England and the Venezuelan authorities last year requested the repatriation of 14 tons of metal stored in this British institution. But the shipment was delayed because the London entity was reluctant to respond to demand before the wave of sanctions imposed by Donald Trump's government.

With hyperinflation and chronic shortage of food and medicine, the Maduro government leaves behind the principle of its political mentor, the late President Hugo Chavez, to accumulate in the coffers of the Central Bank as much of ingots as possible.