Venezuela’s Trade Scheme With Turkey Is Enriching a Mysterious Maduro Cron

Investigators say retrofitted criminal networks are being used to trade gold for the food that’s propping up the regime.

• By Michael Smith and Monte Reel
• From: New Economy Forum

In the late afternoon of July 15, 2016, a cluster of staffers inside the Turkish Embassy in Caracas struggled to make sense of the images from home flashing across their televisions and computer screens.

Military trucks were blocking a bridge over the Bosporus, tanks were rolling into the Istanbul airport, and smoke was rising from the streets of Ankara.

As best they could tell, a group within the Turkish military was trying to overthrow the government of…