News: Large quantities of cash were sent to Venezuela from Russia
Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash have been sent from Russia to Venezuela, providing a lifeline for the South American country as U.S. sanctions restrict its access to the global financial system.
A total of $315 million in US dollars and euros were sent in six separate shipments from Moscow to Caracas from May 2018 to April 2019, according to data reviewed by Bloomberg from ImportGenius. The company had access to Russian customs records obtained by him, including through private sources. The funds came from creditors managed by the governments of the countries and were sent to the Development Bank of Venezuela, records show.
ImportGenius data has been available since April of this year. In the same month, about $97 million was sent in two batches from the Moscow bank "Eurofinance Mosnarbank" to the Venezuelan Banco de Desarrollo Economico y Social de Venezuela, or Bandes. JSC "Eurofinance" is a joint venture of JSC "Bandes" and the Russian Agency for State Property Management.
In January, bills in the amount of $113 million were sent from the state-controlled lender Gazprombank, which at that time had a stake in Eurofinance. The same company sent $50 million in U.S. dollar bills just two days earlier, and two separate shipments of unidentified currency totaling $55 million were made in May and July last year.
The press service of JSC "Eurofinance" did not respond to requests for comment. Requests made by Bandes through the Venezuelan Ministry of Finance were forwarded to the Ministry of Information, which did not respond.
A representative of the Venezuelan government, who asked not to be named when discussing sensitive issues, confirmed that the country had received money transfers linked to the Eurofinance company, but declined to comment further.
Gazprombank spokesman Anton Trifonov declined to comment on any money transfers, but noted that "the correspondent account of Bandes with Gazprombank, as well as any cooperation between the banks, was completely terminated in March 2019."
Last year, "Eurofinance" was selected by the Maduro government to process some payments to their suppliers, who were called upon to direct international transactions through the Moscow bank. Later that year, Venezuela appointed a former member of the Board of Directors of Eurofinance JSC as the highest official in the country's banking system. https://drbet.org.uk/
