Venezuelan 'blood gold' could be used to fund terror attacks

Venezuelan gold is a noted issue in the country, as it is used by Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro to maintain the loyalty of the army.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Gold (photo credit: Courtesy)
Gold
(photo credit: Courtesy)
A plane that made a forced landing in the Caribbean was carrying a ton of Venezuelan gold, which may have been destined for the Middle East and could have funded terrorist attacks against Jewish communities, the Simon Wiesenthal Center reported.
The gold ingots packed in suitcases was valued at over 50 million, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
However, the gold proved to heavy, necessitating a forced landing on the Caribbean island of Aruba, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
According to the control tower, the plane ID number was registered to a California address, which was last flown 20 years prior.
The plane's three Venezuelan crewmen, who were detained by US agents, reportedly claimed that they were en route to Mexico, and then for an onward shipment to Dubai.
This is not an isolated incident of Venezuelan gold being shipped toward the Middle East. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre closely monitors these shipments after hearing claims that some ingots bore markings from Nazi Germany. As such, it is possible that the gold ingots could in fact be "Zahngold," which were gold teeth pulled from the mouths of Jewish corpses in concentration camps before they were cremated.
According to a statement released by Dr. Shimon Samuels, the centre's international relations director, their investigation "led to a mix of 'Congo conflict gold' with Venezuelan shipments arriving on Russian aircraft to Entebbe, Uganda.
“There it was melted into new ingots by a Belgian company. Once the DNA origin was wiped out, the newly-minted ingots were sent on for sale in the Gulf, Turkey and, allegedly, Iran.”
Venezuelan gold is a noted issue in the country, as it is used by Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro to maintain the loyalty of the army.
The democratically-elected president-designate, Juan Guaido, has requested the international community view Venezuelan gold in a similar manner to the "blood diamonds" found in Africa, which are used to finance armed insurgencies and terrorist activities. Guaido has also asked that the international community refer to Venezuelan gold as "blood gold."
Samuels added in the statement that “Sources believe that this and other shipments are managed by the cartels on behalf of Hezbollah in Latin America, and the profits may be used to target Jewish communities, in AMIA-style terrorist attacks."
The AMIA terrorist attack was a suicide bombing attack in 1994 targeting the Jewish organization AMIA in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which resulted in the deaths of 85 people and the injuries of several hundred people. Since 2006, Argentine prosecutors have accused Iran and their proxy group, Hezbollah, of being behind the attack.


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