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Sometimes, being a Venezuelan national is actually a "good" thing. Take Victor Vargas, captain of #team_ricoecuna, read “People write stories about me saying I have a Ferrari, a plane, and a yacht, but it’s not true. I have three planes, two yachts, and six houses. I’ve been rich all my life.” Truth is, Vargas has most definitely not been rich all his life.

The rumour mill is in overspin regarding Rafael Ramirez. A prevalent gossip is that he is "collaborating" in the provision of information highly damaging to Nicolas Maduro, which is "being used" by the Trump administration to "advance" its agenda. Another line of gossip has it that ENI, the Italian oil conglomerate, is providing "legal protection" to Ramirez, who spends most of his time nowadays in Italy. Ramirez, Luisa Ortega Diaz and Hugo Carvajal, as per another line, form a triumvirate of "decent" chavistas, folks with whom the U.S.

A little update on Twitter's decision to permanently suspend my verified @alekboyd account. On 27 August, Twitter placed a temporary lock on my account. The intention was to get me to delete tweets that "violated" Twitter's rules. Since I didn't consider that I was in violation of Twitter rules, and I did not want to delete the tweet in question without first explaining why, I didn't delete the tweet. No communication was ever established with Twitter. No chance of arguing why I did not want to delete the tweet was ever given.

Medium has joined the fray of social media censors. As usual, the Derwick thugs are behind this move. No problem though: below I repost what Medium considers a breach of their rules. But what is Medium really censoring here? Reporting from Reuters, Bloomberg, Switzerland's Department of Justice and Police, and the Department of Justice.

The whole series of investigations of a criminal clan otherwise known as Derwick Associates, that I started back in 2012, was triggered by a court case. I admit it surprised me that the epitome of Bolichico class would be so brazen, and deluded, to think it could silence perceived enemies by launching frivolous civil lawsuits in U.S. courts. I am referring, of course, to the case that Derwick Associates initiated in New York against Banco Venezolano de Crédito and Oscar García Mendoza, then withdrew from that jurisdiction and relaunched in Florida.

Remember this scandal, involving Ricardo Salgado's Banco Espirito Santo and Rafael Ramirez? It seems Portuguese authorities are more collaborative than Spanish ones...