Caracas Chronicles

• Oil minister Tareck El Aissami said he delivered new evidence to ANC-imposed prosecutor general Tarek William Saab regarding the case of 4.85 billion dollars that Rafael Ramírez allegedly stole when he was president of PDVSA. He said reports from 2012 and 2013 show irregularities in financing by “non-financial private companies.” El Aissami asked Saab to include Baldo Sansó Rondón, Ramírez’s brother-in-law, in the investigation for “being a financial operator in all corruption schemes, traffic of influence and favoring transnational companies.” He also assured that the confession by former finance vice president Víctor Aular (who repeated El Aissami’s version word by word), offered details to investigate crimes like charging a commission for granting licenses to international oil companies.
• El Aissami assured that they’ll have good news regarding Monómeros. Gustavo Petro used Twitter to assure that because of the “raid” of Monómeros, Colombia imports fertilizer at three times the price, agriculture lost profitability and the prices of food increased. 
• The Venezuelan Central Bank sold 80 million dollars to the banking system in its 37th currency exchange intervention operation this year. The official dollar is at 7.98 bolivars and the gap between the black market and the official dollar was reduced to 1.48%. 
• Jhonnathan Marín, former chavista mayor of Guanta, Anzoátegui, accused Tarek William Saab of directing “the largest corruption network in Venezuela” alongside his brother Douglas Saab and demanded Saab explain who is Gabriel Urbaje, who he said handles “large contracts” in PDVSA alongside Douglas Saab.

Wingo airlines announced that flights between Venezuela and Colombia will resume on October 4th. Hours later, the INAC president dismissed this information and said Wingo hasn’t been authorized yet.

• The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons requested the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to continue the investigation on Venezuela after the regime asked the case be dropped into the hands of local judicial authorities. 
• There were 446 labor conflicts in Venezuela in August, mostly in the education and sanitary sectors, according to the Instituto de Altos Estudios Sindicales (Inaesin). Most conflicts were caused by salary issues and most complaints were made by workers of the public sector (95.29%).
• According to joint resolution N° 109 signed by defense and interior ministers Vladimir Padrino López and Remigio Ceballos, citizens can record what officers do in checkpoints and holding documents can only be done as established in the laws. Both of these were rights that already existed, maybe the resolution is a reminder for officers. 
• Juan Pappier, senior Human Rights Watch investigator, said that 32,000 migrants crossed the Darien Gap in August, a 4,060% increase compared to August 2021. He warned that what migrants go through is “terrifying.” 
• Panamanian authorities confirmed they have found 18 bodies of migrants in a common grave in Darién, most of which were Venezuelan. Their theory is that if migrants oppose coyotes, they’re murdered. They think over 108,000 migrants have crossed Darien so far this year, and over 70,000 of those are Venezuelan. 
• Hundreds of Venezuelans crossed the Río Bravo from Mexico to the U.S. this weekend. They turned themselves into border authorities in Texas. 
• Venezuela is one of the countries that pays the highest taxes and fees for flights and air transportation in Latin America, which makes a ticket 136.5% more expensive. 
• Russia and Venezuela are coordinating exporting Russian produce into the country. 
• A group of 11 political parties demanded the Unitary Platform define the date and characteristics of the primary elections. 
• Ukraine celebrated Russian troops withdrawing from the Jarkov region and recovering territories. The future of the war seems to have shifted.