Bank of England headquarters's entrance in London with a view of its logo. Photo: iea.org.uk.
The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, accused the United Kingdom on Wednesday, August 3, of stealing in a “brazen and outrageous” way the Venezuelan gold deposited in London, where a court announced last week that it would continue to retain the precious metal from Venezuela’s reserves.
In a conference with entrepreneurs at the Teresa Carreño facilities in Caracas, the head of state stated that for Venezuela it is an operation of “kidnapping and theft” of the 31 tons of gold, valued at approximately 1,600 million euros.
“Venezuela must know that it is an act of piracy and theft, and the whole world must know that there is no legal certainty in London or in the Bank of England, that at any moment the countries of the world can be robbed of their international reserves, their gold reserves,” he said.
He affirmed that the gold belongs to the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and announced that the State will continue fighting without neglecting the work of national economic growth.
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He stressed that Venezuela will recover the gold, the aircraft seized in Argentina, the bank accounts abroad and CITGO, the subsidiary of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in the United States.
“But while we wage that fight, we will not stay with our arms crossed, we do not remain complaint, lamenting. We went from protest to proposal, from proposal to work, and from work to growth,” he added.
Last week, the British judiciary denied the Venezuelan state’s request for access to the Republic’s gold reserves that have been held in the Bank of England since 2019.
The ruling of Judge Sara Cockerill of the High Court of London determined that she does not consider the resolutions of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela valid, that declared null the appointment of the ad hoc directive of the BCV appointed by the former deputy Juan Guaidó, claiming that in the UK there is no legal basis to do so.
They intend to steal a Boeing 747 in Argentina
The president also denounced the United States for trying to steal from Venezuela, the EMTRASUR plane held at the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since June 6.
“Now they intend to steal a plane owned by Venezuela in Argentina, by order of an ‘imperial court’ of the State of Florida, in the United States. A gigantic, modern cargo plane,” he added.
For this reason, he asserted that Venezuela “raises its protest” and asks the Argentine people for “all their support to recover that plane,” which is intended to “be stolen and kidnapped after two months,” of being irregularly grounded.
“As they intend to steal CITGO, they intend to steal the plane that belongs to Venezuela (…) a plane that takes humanitarian aid to the Caribbean countries, to Africa, with which we bring medicines from China, Russia, India, which fulfills a humanitarian role,” he said.
The Boeing 747-300 was grounded on June 6 with 19 crew members (14 Venezuelans and five Iranians), despite the fact that the plane and the cargo were inspected and subjected to searches without finding anything of illegal origin, explosives, drugs, nor was any accusation made against the crew.
On August 2, an Argentine judge authorized the departure of 12 of the 19 crew members from the country, but the plane is still held in Ezeiza. Four Iranians and three Venezuelans remain in detention.
(Últimas Noticias) by Robert Araujo
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/EF
