#Gold Got the kick it was looking for with the killing of #Soleimani

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MasterMetals
@MasterMetals

#Venezuela-#Turkey #Gold for Food Trading Scheme hides many stories

Retrofitted criminal networks are being used to trade gold for the subsidized food rations that's propping up the regime.

Good piece from Bloomberg on the criminal alliance between the new best friends, Venezuela's Maduro and Turkey's Erdogan-and the ColombianLebanese raking in the billions along the way... As They say, My Enemy's Enemy, is My Friend...

"With the coup attempt," Erdogan said at a news conference earlier this year, "we met Maduro. It has been a good beginning."

Maduro and Erdogan in Istanbul in October 2016.

Photographer: Kayhan Ozer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Within weeks of the July call, Maduro announced his first trip to Turkey. Before the end of 2016, that Turkish Airlines route between Istanbul and Caracas was inaugurated, and delegations from the two countries started crisscrossing the Atlantic to forge deals. They began to construct a secretive business network, one that could operate out of reach of financial sanctions imposed by the U.S. It would be a network that trades in two powerful currencies for Venezuela: gold and food.

Maduro was saddled with a near-worthless currency, the bolívar, that had been bludgeoned by years of hyperinflation. Profits from his country's massive oil reserves, which had funded the Venezuelan government for decades, were evaporating because of falling prices, a neglected and crumbling infrastructure, rampant corruption, and international isolation. Venezuelans were starving, and Maduro's approval rating had plummeted. So he grasped a financial lifeline in gold, one of the only resources of value he had left.

In August 2016, Maduro announced that a state mining company called Minerven would be the sole official gold buyer in the vast tracts of jungle, savanna, and rolling hills where mining had long been clandestine and unregulated—essentially legalizing a business lorded over by murderous gangs. He sent in troops to force miners to comply and began hoovering up ore from open-pit mines. (Through a spokesman, Victor Cano, the mining minister, declined to comment for this story.) Maduro also started cashing in on the billions of dollars' worth of gold bars that Chávez, who was loath to invest in U.S. dollars, had stockpiled. The sell-off carried hints of desperation. According to sources in Venezuela's central bank, the government secretly sold the bank's massive collection of rare gold coins, dating to the 18th century. The coins, box upon box of them, were thrown together in a single 30-ton sale in late 2017, and Venezuela accepted a price based on their weight alone, not their collectible value.

Turkey Swaps #Gold for Iranian #Gas

Loophole in Western Sanctions Allows Iran to Buy Gold in Turkey With Turkish Payments for Gas Imported From Iran

Turkey Acknowledges Gold Exports Tied to Iran Gas Purchases - WSJ.com

ISTANBUL—Turkey on Friday acknowledged that a surge in its gold exports this year is related to payments for imports of Iranian natural gas, shedding light on Ankara's role in breaching U.S.-led sanctions against Tehran.
The continuing trade deal offers the most striking example of how Iran is using creative ways to sidestep Western sanctions over its disputed nuclear program, which have largely frozen it out of the global banking system.
The disclosure was made by Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister and top economic policy maker Ali Babacan in answers to questions from the parliamentary budget committee.


Read the rest of the article online (Subs. required): Turkey Acknowledges Gold Exports Tied to Iran Gas Purchases - WSJ.com

See our previous note on the Iran-Turkey Gold-gas situation:  MasterMetals: Iran’s Neighbors Act as Gold Funnels | Gold Investing News:

in the first six months of 2012, [with] gold exports to Iran, we are talking about a gold export figure in excess of $6 billion. So, compared to past trends, we are definitely talking about something extraordinary here,” he said.

In July, Turkish gold sales to Iran reached nearly $2 billion. That trade that did not go unnoticed or unreported; Turkish and international media began to hone in on this relationship.

As the spotlight grew brighter, Iran’s demand for gold from Turkey seemed to decline. Simultaneously, an enormous appetite for gold erupted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Some believe that the players, aiming to mask the trade, switched up their game a bit.

Special report: For Iran oil trader, Western ties run deep | Reuters

Special report: For Iran oil trader, Western ties run deep

9:16am EST

By Emma Farge, Chris Vellacott and Stephen Grey
LONDON (Reuters) - The newspaper notice sat next to advertisements for tarot-card readings, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and children's tap-dancing lessons. The Naftiran Intertrade Company, an oil-trading firm owned by the Iranian government, announced plans to close its registered headquarters in the British tax haven of Jersey and move to a tax haven in Asia.
That advertisement, in a Jersey newspaper last September, came as Iranian companies were stepping up efforts to get around Western sanctions designed to slow or stop Iran's nuclear program. But the Iranian oil trader's retreat from the West has been only a partial one.
Reuters has learned that on February 1, Naftiran Intertrade increased its holding in British oil giant BP Plc by 1.85 million shares. It now holds a stake worth more than $190 million.
In addition to the shareholding, the Iranian company's ties to BP include the Rhum gas field in the North Sea, a venture that's now suspended due to sanctions. It also has active projects like a gas field with BP in Azerbaijan, and an investment with Royal Dutch Shell in fuel distribution in Senegal.
An examination of the operations of Naftiran Intertrade, or NICO as it is known, shows just how difficult it is for Western companies to untangle their ties with Iran. NICO is under pressure to leave Europe, but it has a web of assets, joint ventures and relationships with Western firms that will likely prove difficult and expensive for either side to break.
A spokesman at BP said the company would not comment on individual shareholders. "However we regularly review and take legal advice to ensure our compliance with sanctions legislation. We remain confident that BP is in full compliance with all applicable sanctions regimes including UN, EU regulations and US law, and will remain in compliance," he said. "We continue to monitor the situation closely."
NIOC and NICO did not respond to requests for comment.
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SPECIAL REPORT-Iran's cat-and-mouse game on sanctions: link.reuters.com/daf66s
SPECIAL REPORT-For Iran oil trader, Western ties run deep in PDF: link.reuters.com/vyj66s
Graphic showing changes to IRISL fleet over past four years: link.reuters.com/faf66s
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"A BIT TOO CLOSE"
NICO jumped from Jersey before it was pushed. The firm, which is essentially the offshore arm of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), dissolved its base on the Channel isle on January 8 with a "certificate of continuance" that indicated it would move to the tax haven of Labuan, an island off the coast of Malaysia.
"The company decided it would be best to move their business elsewhere," said a person close to the Jersey government. "They were aware of government concerns. They had very close links to the Iranian regime, a bit too close."
A spokesman for Jersey's financial regulator JFSC declined to comment.
NICO has been under U.S. sanctions since 2008, deemed an entity "owned or controlled by the Government of Iran." It had moved its headquarters to Jersey from London in 1991, after decades of operations in Britain in the days before Iran's Islamic revolution and "long before the days when (Britain) grew a conscience," as one veteran oil trader put it.
The National Iranian Oil Company relies on NICO as an important source of foreign exchange. If NICO was to shut altogether, analysts say, it would starve the NIOC of cash and put it at the mercy of Iran's squabbling political elites and clerics.
"NICO is a way for the National Iranian Oil Company to raise capital without having to rely on budget allocations approved by the Iranian government," said Valerie Marcel, an associate fellow at think tank Chatham House and an expert in nationally owned oil companies.
To get around the sanctions, NICO uses offshore financial havens and a web of asset and industrial holdings in the West. While it was based in Jersey, the firm operated through a "service company" based in Switzerland. But even there, in a country that has not yet signed up to the trade sanctions against Iran, the company's future could be in doubt.
LAKESIDE OUTPOST
Tucked behind a pebble beach on Lake Geneva in Pully, a chic suburb of Lausanne, NICO's remaining active European base is housed in a five-storey glass and marble office block. The office was set up in 2002 after the company moved its oil trading and energy investment activities to Switzerland from London.
A profile page on professional networking website LinkedIn states that NICO's Swiss office has between 11-50 employees; one of those workers posted that the firm's annual trading profit was $23 billion, although this figure could not be independently verified.
NICO's Swiss base has played a key role in maintaining an international presence beyond the reach of Western powers seeking to choke it, say oil traders familiar with its operations.
Switzerland is neutral and not a member of the European Union. It is also divided into semi-autonomous 'cantons' which compete with each other to attract companies and are often reluctant to interfere in their affairs.
Officials in the canton of Vaud, which contains Lausanne, said they saw no reason for NICO to leave.
"It's not because of cowardice or indifference, it's just that we don't have the authority or the right to have a position on foreign policy," said an official in the canton's department for economic development.
That could change. Switzerland tends to copy sanctions passed by its largest trade partner, the European Union, and trade experts think that it will eventually pass a law aimed at curtailing the "import, purchase or transport" of Iranian oil.
But even then, pressure on NICO's Swiss hub could be blunted by the realities of Switzerland's special status as a neutral nation in international affairs, as well as a variety of loopholes.
A former Swiss diplomat now working in Brussels said that "the general plan has been for Switzerland to try to converge on what the EU does, but Iran is a case of its own."
Historically, Switzerland has helped the U.S. in its relations with Iran, he said. "I think the Swiss will be extremely careful about taking any decision on this matter. The overriding concern is the representation of U.S. interests and Switzerland's role as a go-between although this has been a difficult undertaking for years."
To avoid creating a loophole in the EU sanctions regime "the trading functions (of Iranian companies) could be moved elsewhere," he said.
LONDON HEYDAY
NICO's roots in Europe are deep. Its former European hub in London is a sparsely occupied seven-floor building a few doors down from New Scotland Yard and within sight of Westminster Abbey. It still belongs to parent company NIOC, according to Land Registry documents.