Crimes against Venezuela
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Started by patrick - Sept. 26, 2026, 11:32 a.m.

History makes us less sensitive to US misbehavior south of the border. The actions against Venezuela are still kind of shocking.
The killing of over 200 people on boats appears to be murders-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-22/us-drug-boat-strikes-legality-explained-in-un-report/107180978

In a briefing note prepared for the UN Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur Ben Saul said there is no legal justification supporting Mr Trump's perspective.

"Such attacks amount to serial extrajudicial killings in violation of the right to life," the report, published on Monday, said.

"[They are] unjustified in national or personal self-defence or under international humanitarian law, the international law of the sea, narcotics suppression conventions, or international counter-terrorism law."

And much more detail at the link.

The taking of Venezuela's oil company is as shady as it sounds:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/26/donald-trump-oil-deal-with-venezuela?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Then in August, Trump announced that the office of strategic capital at the Pentagon, which he has rapidly transformed, would own a third of the second-biggest private Venezuelan oil firm, North American Blue Energy Partners (Nabep). Trump said the deal means he’ll soon refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which dropped to a longtime low after the US invaded Iran.

But virtually everything Trump and his cabinet have said about the deal is false and misleading, according to the experts and officials who spoke with the Guardian. The Venezuelan law governing oil development does not allow for 100-year deals, or anything over 25 years. The office of strategic capital isn’t authorized in US law, experts say, to own shares in companies. Moreover, they say, the deal as structured won’t bring new capital to Venezuela’s oil sector.

And contrary to Trump’s claims, the Venezuelan oil will not help refill the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve any time in the near future.

There is also a curious figure at the center of the deal: Alejandro Betancourt López, the affable Venezuelan with a complex background who is becoming a partner of the US government as the owner of Nabep.

This one is long & strange, and doesn't even get near what's happened to the money from seized oil.

Comments
By metmike - Sept. 26, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
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All wonderful points, patrick! Thank you!

                Trump illegally bombing boats            

                            46 responses |                

                Started by metmike - Oct. 22, 2025, 2:22 p.m.        

    https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/115399/




By patrick - Sept. 28, 2026, 10:07 a.m.
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Buying gold from criminals.
A quite long NYT article, with a gift link on BSKY at 

https://bsky.app/profile/cherylrofer.bsky.social/post/3mwlhpfpksk25

“Around 90 percent of the gold produced in Venezuela is criminally produced,” said Julia Yansura, program director at the FACT Coalition, a Washington-based anticorruption organization. “If international companies want to go in and try to find the 10 percent that’s supposedly OK, that’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

Heeney and its founders did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesman for Mercuria declined to comment.

This month, Heeney announced it had signed a deal to take over mining operations and export rights at El Chocó. The company said it would modernize operations to international standards. It is unclear what steps Heeney might take to disentangle the mine from organized crime.

At the White House, Unshaken Confidence

Half a year after Trafigura began bringing Venezuelan gold into the United States, the company has been unable to resell it, according to people familiar with the deal.

That means that gold, meant to be a boon to U.S. business, instead sits in storage. Whoever buys and refines it would need to vouch that the gold has no ties to criminality.

By metmike - Sept. 28, 2026, 12:10 p.m.
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Thanks, patrick.

Speaking of the Trump Mafia:

                Re: Re: Tulsi Gabbard resigns           

                        By metmike - May 23, 2026, 7:07 p.m.            

            


https://www.britannica.com/topic/Second-Cabinet-of-Donald-Trump



https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/117090/#118371

The Trump Mafia:


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Trump's Cabinet Picks So Far: Breaking ...Donald Trump Is Stealing the Kennedy ...


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Trump targets Pope Leo, claims ‘he wouldn’t be in Vatican without me’

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