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Opinion

How Maduro and His Allies Stole Venezuela’s Oil Wealth

Venezuela’s oil wealth was plundered and its citizens have seen almost nothing of those enormous riches.
How Maduro and His Allies Stole Venezuela’s Oil Wealth
A sculpture of a hand holding an oil drilling rig is pictured outside the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela in Caracas on Feb. 26, 2025. Pedro Mattey/AFP via Getty Images
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Commentary

All freedom defenders must welcome Maduro’s arrest as the beginning of a democratic transition process in Venezuela. The economic and political debate often ignores that the Maduro dictatorship weaponized the national oil company to use it as a cash machine to enrich the leaders of the socialist regime and finance the demolition of democratic institutions all over Latin America, creating an international group of allies with the main objective of demolishing the U.S., European and Latin American democracies from inside.

Daniel Lacalle
Daniel Lacalle
Author
Daniel Lacalle, Ph.D., is chief economist at hedge fund Tressis and author of the bestselling books “Freedom or Equality” (2020), “Escape from the Central Bank Trap” (2017), “The Energy World Is Flat”​ (2015), and “Life in the Financial Markets.”