While in book-writing mode I bumped again into Dinosaur Merchant Bank. It made a rather noisy entrance in 2017, when it intermediated in a transaction where Goldman Sachs bought $2.8 billion worth of Venezuela 2022 bonds on 31 cents on the dollar. I read about it in this affidavit (paragraph 83), in relation to a $100 million bond portfolio belonging to Wilmer Ruperti.

While Rudy Giuliani rushed to Bill Barr to get Alejandro Betancourt off the hook, and closest relatives of Juan Guaido provided bona fides, Nicolas Maduro had a realisation of profound consequences: Venezuela can move on from its oil dependence into money laundering. Venezuela is perfectly placed and is, in fact, the launching pad of choice for most of the cocaine produced in neighbouring Andean region that enters international markets.

Infodio has been saying it since he decided to swear himself as Venezuela's interim President in the middle of the street back in January 2019: Juan Guaido is a fraud, a two-bit thug, an inept so out of his depth that to expect anything from him, other than continuation of utterly corrupt status quo in Venezuela, is a pipe dream.