President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro is being accused of using cryptocurrency in an attempt to circumvent US imposed sanctions.
The sanctions in question fall against Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas firm Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), with the US blocking all of the companies properties and assets under US jurisdiction and prohibiting any US citizen to transact with the company.
PDVSA is the only national company that still generates dollars to the Government of Venezuela, and has seen production fall from 3 million barrels to 741,000 per day following the American crackdown.
The accusations have been levelled towards the Venezuelan president following an investigation, by Spanish newspaper ABC, which claim tax revenue from the Maiquetia International Airport (IAIM) is being collected.
Allegedly, taxes are collected through an app called Jetman Pay, an automated system for the collection of taxes which works under the cover of facilitating the access and payment of operational services to airlines.
Maduro and his associates are reportedly using the digital wallet app to turn tax revenue into Bitcoin and the Venezuelan cryptocurrency, Petro, that are then transferred to foreign exchanges in Hong Kong, Hungary, Russia and China before being converted and sent back to Venezuela.
