Venezuela Demands the Bank of England Return 31 Tonnes of Gold: Acting President Rodríguez Says She Will Not Give Up the Claim
Caracas — Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, told a cabinet meeting on October 28 that Britain must return 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold that have sat frozen in the Bank of England's vaults for more than six years, and she instructed the Foreign Ministry and the Attorney General's Office to advance diplomatic and legal efforts to recover them. At current prices the bullion is valued at about $4 billion.
“I will not give up demanding that the Bank of England return our gold. Enough excuses. This gold belongs to Venezuelans, not to the Bank of England,” Rodríguez said at the meeting, which was broadcast by state television. She said she had previously written directly to King Charles III requesting the release of the assets.
The gold has been deposited with the Bank of England since 2008. Venezuela's government lost access to the reserves in 2019, after Britain refused to recognize Nicolás Maduro's 2018 reelection; opposition leader Juan Guaidó formally asked British authorities that year to block the Maduro government from reaching the gold, and competing claims were litigated in British courts for years.
After Maduro was captured by U.S. forces in January and transferred to New York, Rodríguez became acting president and relations with Washington began to thaw. In August, the interim government and a sector of the opposition agreed to work jointly to recover the gold; on October 21 the two delegations agreed to set up a joint commission to engage with London. According to reports, proposals under discussion include transferring the bullion to the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York, where any sale or use as loan collateral would require the Trump administration's approval and be subject to foreign audits.
Rodríguez's government has made recovering overseas assets a priority for financing reconstruction after the twin earthquakes that struck the country in June. The Bank of England has maintained that it needs further legal clarity before the gold can be released.
Source: Venezolana de Televisión
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于伦敦 Threadneedle Street 的英格兰银行大楼。照片：Steve Daniels，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Bank of England building on Threadneedle Street, London. Photo by Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
