Smuggled Venezuelan Gasoline Fuels an Entire Economy Next Door

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg News

Smuggled Venezuelan Gasoline Fuels an Entire Economy Next Door
by Andrew Rosati
September 24, 2015 — 6:00 PM CDT


Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has deployed thousands of soldiers, shuttered large swaths of his country’s border with Colombia and deported hundreds of migrants in his latest crackdown on contraband. He may now be starting to look at a different border where Venezuela’s almost free gasoline has been flowing liberally.

Troops have begun to build up near Guyana’s western frontier, where entire towns subsist on smuggled Venezuelan fuel and market stalls are packed with goods brought in illegally. For years, authorities in the tiny, English-speaking South American nation not only looked the other way, they virtually embraced the practice.

“We ain’t got a gas station,” laughed gas-seller Emanuel Slyvain, 52, as he siphoned Venezuelan fuel from a greasy drum on the outskirts of Mabaruma, a border town. “No one even bothers.”

Residents have come to rely on a steady flow of motorboats that ferry gasoline through the tributaries of the mighty Orinoco River. Smugglers say they risk jail time or extortion from Venezuelan security forces. But, in Guyana, convictions are so rare that unloading is done in the light of day.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-24/smuggled-venezuelan-gasoline-fuels-an-entire-economy-next-door

[PoliticAverse]

1. Not surprising. You give stuff away at substantially below market price and people game the system.

In Venezuela or the U.S.

[geek tragedy]

2. Venezuela should stop giving gasoline away then. That's an irresponsible policy

for any number of reasons, climate being amongst them.