{"id":178829,"date":"2018-11-08T13:12:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T13:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=178829"},"modified":"2018-11-13T06:19:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T06:19:48","slug":"bank-of-england-refusing-venezuelan-request-to-return-550-mln-in-gold-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=178829","title":{"rendered":"Bank of England Refusing Venezuelan Request to Return $550 Mln in Gold \u2013 Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sputnik News — Nov 7, 2018<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"gold\"<\/a>Earlier, Caracas indicated that it was looking to repatriate some 14 tons of gold bars back from the UK out of concern that the bullion may be affected by harsh US sanctions against the Latin American country.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bank of\u00a0England is refusing to\u00a0release Venezuela’s gold bars, worth about $550 million or \u00a3420 million, back to\u00a0Caracas, with\u00a0British officials understood to\u00a0have referred to “standard” anti-money laundering measures, The Times reports<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, citing unnamed sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

“There are concerns that Mr. [Nicolas] Maduro may seize the gold, which is owned by\u00a0the state, and sell it for\u00a0personal gain,” the newspaper explains.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, two informed sources told Reuters that the Venezuelan government has been trying to\u00a0move its gold<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>from\u00a0Bank of\u00a0England vaults back to\u00a0Venezuela for\u00a0nearly two months, with\u00a0the shipment thought to\u00a0be held up\u00a0over difficulties in\u00a0obtaining insurance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington imposed new restrictions against\u00a0Venezuela last week targeting<\/a><\/strong><\/span> the country’s gold exports, accusing the Maduro government of “looting” Venezuela’s stocks of\u00a0the precious metals amid\u00a0the country’s economic crisis. The sanctions, which target US individuals and companies trading in\u00a0Venezuelan gold, was announced by\u00a0US National Security Advisor John Bolton last week, with\u00a0Bolton also branding<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Caracas a member of\u00a0a “troika of\u00a0tyranny” along\u00a0with Cuba and Nicaragua.<\/span><\/p>\n

Venezuela has made a concerted effort to\u00a0become a major gold exporter, and is engaged in\u00a0certifying some 32 goldfields, and building 54 processing plants in\u00a0a bid to\u00a0become what Maduro said would be “the second largest gold reserve on\u00a0Earth.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The Venezuelan government has made an effort to\u00a0reduce dependence on\u00a0US-led or controlled financial institutions and instruments, including the dollar, and committed<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0last month to\u00a0trade in\u00a0euros, yuan and “other convertible currencies” amid\u00a0US restrictions.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent years, Venezuela has faced an acute economic crisis accompanied by\u00a0hyperinflation, the devaluation of\u00a0its currency, the bolivar, and goods shortages in\u00a0shops, with\u00a0the crisis caused by crippling US restrictions<\/a><\/strong><\/span> as\u00a0well as\u00a0mismanagement on\u00a0the part of\u00a0state oil company PDSVA. Winning a second term in\u00a0office in\u00a0May 2018, Maduro promised to\u00a0make economic recovery one of\u00a0the government’s top priorities. Amid the difficult situation facing his country, Maduro has repeatedly accused the US and Colombia of\u00a0plotting to\u00a0overthrow the Venezuelan government in\u00a0an invasion<\/a><\/strong><\/span> or coup.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This follows new restrictions imposed by Washington last week targeting Venezuela’s gold exports <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":42087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Unreported_News"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178831,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178829\/revisions\/178831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}