In October 2018 this site posited that Victor Vargas' Banco Occidental de Descuento was a Ponzi. Shortly after, Curaçao’s Central Bank acted decisively against Banco del Orinoco, a fully-owned subsidiary controlled by Vargas.

Think about it: sanctions are just the perfect justification. There's nothing quite so flexible, encompassing and revolutionary as being the target of U.S. Treasury sanctions. Everything can be explained under the purview of sanctions. Lack of food? Unemployment? No gasoline? Derelict hospitals and crumbling infrastructure? Malnutrition? Teachers striking? Power cuts? All of that, and more, happens because of sanctions. Like the Cuban dictatorship, chavismo has not lost, but reaffirmed the credibility of its now 24 year old criminal regime thanks to sanctions.

There's all this talk about how the Biden administration is working on a plan to ease sanctions on Venezuela. Coupled with the "scoop" about Jorge Rodriguez and U.S. National Security Council's Juan Gonzalez having met in different parts of the world, for back channel negotiations, it has driven the commentariat to conclude that Venezuela is about to add hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day to the market, which ultimately caused a (momentary) drop in prices.