Gold Reserves Looted from Venezuela's Central Bank

Uncertainty over the whereabouts of Venezuela's national gold reserves and who controls them.

Want to know if Venezuela still has any gold reserves left? Then don't look for it in the country's Central Bank anymore. Central Bank (BCV) gold reserves have been trucked to the Caracas Fuerte Tiuna army garrison under armed escort by loyalist military officers who support strongman Hugo Chavez in his refusal to allow free and democratic elections.

Garrison commander Jorge Luis Garcia Carneiro, a military officer still loyal to Chavez, has refused to give precise figures of how much gold his men took. He claims, however, that at least ten metric tonnes (321,500 troy ounces) of gold bullion currently remain under his heavily-armed 24/7 control in Fuerte Tiuna, and that the order to remove it from the Central Bank came directly from Hugo Chavez himself.

The lack of precise numbers makes it difficult or impossible for independent controllers to verify the government's accounting if the gold is ever returned.

Immediately when the gold was moved to Fuerte Tiuna, Hugo Chavez and three of his cabinet ministers also moved there, and now sleep permanently in lodgings in the Circulo Militar, within the protected perimeters of the garrison.

International credit rating agencies are now expected to downgrade Venezuela once again, as chaos in the Central Bank and the uncertainty of the country's gold reserves reveal the true state of affairs in the country's increasingly desperate Chavez government.

Preliminary data released Dec 27 2002 by the Venezuelan Central Bank showed that the country's economy contracted by an estimated 10 percent to 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002, the largest quarterly drop in the past 50 years.