Venezuela’s gold trade faces a new test as Trafigura’s bullion remains in storage

Fri Oct 02 2026

Six months after the United States moved to reopen a channel for Venezuelan gold imports, a major shipment purchased under the new arrangement remains in storage, raising questions about the practical challenges of rebuilding a trade that was shut down for years by sanctions and concerns over illegal mining.

Commodities giant Trafigura, which became the first major international company to take advantage of Washington’s easing of restrictions on Venezuelan gold in March, confirmed that the gold it has purchased remains under its control in a warehouse. The development highlights the difficulties of moving Venezuelan bullion from mines in the country’s remote south into international markets while satisfying US requirements on supply-chain transparency, responsible sourcing and legal compliance.

“All gold Trafigura has purchased from Venezuela to-date is currently in storage, under Trafigura’s control,” a company spokesperson told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in September.

The company did not explain why the gold has not yet been sold or imported into the US market. However, experts familiar with the international gold trade say the delay may reflect the difficulty of establishing a sufficiently documented chain of custody for Venezuelan gold.

The issue is particularly sensitive because much of Venezuela’s gold is extracted in the Orinoco Mining Arc, a vast region in the country’s heavily forested south where illegal armed groups and criminal organizations have exercised substantial influence over mining communities for years.

 A deal once described as historic

The reopening of Venezuela’s gold trade followed a dramatic change in US-Venezuela relations this year. After the US operation that resulted in Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, being taken to New York to face trial, Washington began engaging with Venezuela’s interim authorities on economic and political matters.

During a March visit to Caracas, US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum met with Interim President Delcy Rodríguez. On March 5 and 6, Burgum announced an agreement under which Trafigura would purchase as much as one metric ton of Venezuelan gold doré.

Gold doré is a semi-refined form of gold that still requires additional refining before it can be turned into investment-grade bullion or other finished products. Under the arrangement, the material would ultimately be transported to the United States for refining and sale.

The agreement was accompanied by a series of rapid policy changes in Washington and Caracas.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a new license allowing certain purchases of Venezuelan gold. Venezuela also restructured its state mining operations, merging Minerven with a larger state mining company. Authorities introduced legislation intended to attract foreign investment while promising tougher action against illegal mining.

The speed of the changes represented a major reversal from the previous US policy.

 From sanctions to conditional access

Venezuelan gold had effectively been closed to American buyers since 2019, when the first Trump administration sanctioned Minerven, Venezuela’s state gold-mining company.

Washington accused Minerven of purchasing gold from small-scale miners at below-market prices using the heavily devalued Venezuelan bolivar. US authorities also alleged that the Venezuelan government had permitted criminal groups to exercise de facto control over parts of the gold sector.

Those allegations were linked to broader concerns surrounding corruption, human rights abuses and environmental destruction in mining regions.

The new US policy does not represent an unconditional reopening of the market. Instead, the authorization requires companies importing Venezuelan gold to demonstrate that they have conducted appropriate supply-chain due diligence.

The US government has said gold entering the country must comply with American law. The new license specifically requires importers to submit documentation demonstrating plans to conduct supply-chain due diligence and establish the gold’s chain of custody.

That requirement could prove difficult in Venezuela.

 The challenge of knowing where the gold comes from

David Soud, an expert on illicit gold flows and head of research at strategic consulting firm I.R. Consilium, told OCCRP that responsible sourcing requires far more than identifying a state-owned company as the immediate seller.

For a buyer to establish a credible chain of custody, he explained, it must be able to demonstrate where the gold originated and track it through processing and export.

That becomes complicated when gold passes through regions where legal and illegal mining operations coexist.

The Orinoco region presents precisely that challenge. Over nearly two decades, criminal organizations commonly known as sindicatos have established extensive influence over mining activity. Small-scale miners have often been required to pay fees to these groups in exchange for access to mining areas.

International organizations have documented serious abuses in the region. The United Nations human-rights system has reported trafficking and sexual exploitation, while environmental organizations have documented extensive damage caused by mining operations.

The risks extend beyond the question of whether a particular mine is formally licensed. Gold can change hands several times before reaching a state-controlled purchasing or processing facility, making it difficult for an international buyer to prove that the final product originated entirely from legitimate sources.

 Conditions on the ground remain uncertain

The Venezuelan government has promised to reform the mining sector and combat illegal extraction. But reports from the field suggest that changing regulations and political leadership have not necessarily transformed conditions in remote mining areas.

SOS Orinoco, a Venezuelan environmental organization monitoring the southern mining region, recently reported that criminal groups continue to play a central role in economic and social activity south of the Orinoco River.

A report covering the period from April through August found continuing environmental damage associated with gold mining and concluded that illegal armed groups remained important operational actors across the region.

The organization also reported finding no evidence that the new US licensing framework had resulted in a significant influx of legitimate participants into the gold-mining sector.

Cristina Vollmer, executive director of SOS Orinoco, said conditions in the region had not improved since the political changes earlier in the year and argued that the situation may have deteriorated.

Such assessments underscore the gap that can exist between a government’s policy commitments and conditions in remote mining territories.

 Trafigura’s responsible-sourcing effort

Trafigura has emphasized that it is attempting to address these concerns through its own responsible-sourcing procedures.

The company said an independent third-party auditing firm and an assurance provider approved by the London Bullion Market Association had visited and assessed the principal Minerven sites from which Trafigura is sourcing gold.

According to the company, the assessments had not identified human-rights violations, conflict financing, illegal taxation, extortion or involvement by illegal actors at the sites examined.

However, the existence of audits does not automatically resolve the broader challenge of tracing gold through an entire supply chain. The central question remains whether gold entering a controlled facility can be conclusively separated from material originating from illegal or abusive mining operations elsewhere.

That distinction matters because Venezuela’s mining economy is deeply interconnected, and the Orinoco region is geographically difficult to monitor.

 A test for the reopened trade

The gold now sitting in storage therefore represents more than a delayed commodity shipment. It is an early test of whether Venezuela can reconnect its mining sector with major international markets under stricter standards.

For Trafigura, the commercial opportunity is potentially significant. Venezuela possesses substantial gold resources, and the reopening of legitimate trade could provide new revenues for the Venezuelan state while creating opportunities for international commodity companies.

For Washington, however, the issue is also one of regulatory credibility. The United States has opened the door to Venezuelan gold while requiring importers to demonstrate that their supply chains meet legal and due-diligence standards.

For Venezuela, the challenge is even broader: convincing international buyers that reforms announced in Caracas are producing measurable changes in the mining regions themselves.

The US government has said that compliance monitoring is in place for proceeds from products exported by the Venezuelan state to the United States. A US official also said Washington, acting as custodian of Venezuelan revenue, has been working with the Rodríguez government to make funds available for official government expenditures and maintain liquidity.

But the continued storage of Trafigura’s Venezuelan gold illustrates the difference between reopening a market on paper and creating a supply chain capable of satisfying international scrutiny.

Until buyers can confidently establish where Venezuelan gold originates, who extracted it, how it moved through the supply chain and whether criminal organizations benefited from its production, the country’s return to the global gold market is likely to remain a complicated and closely watched process.

The March agreement may have marked a historic policy shift. The months since then have demonstrated that changing the rules is considerably easier than changing the realities of the mining regions those rules are intended to govern.

Source: https://weeklyblitz.net/