During the broadcast last Wednesday, May 28, of his program Con el Mazo Dando, the Minister of Interior Relations, Justice, and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, announced the arrest of 20 people linked to financial terrorism through the manipulation of the parallel dollar price.

“We have been working for days with those who have platforms to say that the dollar is worth I don't know how much,” he assured, while indicating that the investigation was carried out “in silence” and “without any kind of abuse.”

The statement was made at the time of confirming the arrest of Carlos Andrés Pérez Abreu, creator of Monitor Dólar, one of the platforms that manipulated the price of the US currency.

“The first one has fallen, the first structure has fallen. There are 20 arrested,” he affirmed.

Until that moment, little was known about how these platforms operated to set the illegal dollar rate, however, with the investigations carried out by state security forces, the modus operandi of these has been revealed.

In a report published by Últimas Noticias, the way in which the platforms, exchange houses, and social media accounts operated was highlighted, which were dedicated to this form of financial terrorism that severely affected the country's economy and the heritage of the Venezuelan people.

First link

One of the factors behind the manipulation of the dollar price, and the best known of all, are the so-called price fixers, who operated through social media, especially on Instagram, and served as a reference for unscrupulous merchants.

One of the most popular accounts was precisely Monitor Dólar, which published the price of the parallel dollar twice a day. Investigations revealed, according to Últimas Noticias, that it was fed by the other three factors that manipulated the currency.

The newspaper highlights that the large traffic these social media accounts and websites had allowed them to profit by advertising illegal exchange houses and from ads inserted by Google.

“The American company sent checks to the owners of these accounts and they were cashed in banks in Panama. These checks were exchanged in the Central American country for cash by third parties, and in that way, the money was sent to Venezuela, according to police and judicial investigations,” specifies the mentioned media outlet.

Exchange house

The other factor influencing the manipulation of the US currency was illegal exchange houses, including: Cambios Rya, whose main headquarters is located in Bogotá, Colombia, and has a branch in Zulia state; in addition to Tu Cambio Ideal LLC, Inversiones Solange Ve, and Cambios La Victoria 2018.

These companies were operating without permission from the Superintendency of Banking Sector Institutions (Sudeban), as “financial entities that collected money from the public at street level.”

P2P

The third factor is the so-called P2P trade, which means peer-to-peer, and refers to instant transfers made between individuals through digital platforms.

One of the 18 applications linked to this financial terrorism plot is El Dorado, where it was possible to obtain foreign currencies and cryptocurrencies at parallel prices.

In a video published last weekend by journalist Madelein García, and reported by Laiguana.tv, one of the founders of this application, Guillermo Goncalves, is seen advising entrepreneurs, as well as small and medium-sized merchants, to sell their products at the parallel price.

“What they have to do is continue operating their business model in dollars, referring to the parallel dollar. This is very important as they can never have a business that operates at a loss, and really the parallel dollar is the only free market dollar. Don't create stories about having to accept payments at BCV or anything like that,” Goncalves, who resides in Argentina, said a few months ago.

García also showed a video in which, after the first arrests, this individual apologized and acknowledged that the only marker for assessing the price of the dollar is the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV).

“I am very sorry, as in no way have our actions been aimed at promoting speculation on the parallel dollar in Venezuela,” he stated, while also affirming that “in Venezuela the only official source of the dollar price is the Central Bank of Venezuela.”

Direct buying and selling

Another factor of financial terrorism is the direct buying and selling applications for foreign currencies. These operate outside the P2P market.

Some of the most used are Neomoon, Merú, and Kontigo.