Venezuela closed its border with Colombia for 72 hours

Economy Adina Camarasu
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered closing the border with Colombia on Monday evening for 72 hours.

This occurred after the government detained some mobs who were trying to introduce large quantities of banknotes of 100 bolivars, previously withdrawn from circulation, according to AFP.

‘We took the decision to close the border with Colombia for 72 hours,’ said the Venezuelan president, a day after he decreed the withdrawal of 100 bolivars banknotes within three days.

According to President Maduro, these banknotes were recovered while entering across the border with Colombia, by criminal groups aiming to destabilize the Venezuelan economy.

A Billion bolivars are currently ‘in the hands of international mobsters coordinated from Colombia’, said Nicolas Maduro on Sunday.

Recognizing that it is a ‘tough but inevitable’ decision, the president urged strengthening border controls in order to prevent these banknotes from returning to Venezuela, destabilizing, even more, a very weak economy.

According to Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan authorities seized 64 billion bolivars on Monday, ‘on the verge of crossing the border in bypasses’.

Caracas leader said he would discuss this issue with his Colombian counterpart, Juan Manuel Santos, to ask him to cancel the authorization of changing bolivars at the Colombian border, at a different exchange rate from the official one in Venezuela.

Venezuelan President decided to get rid of the country’s 100-bolivar banknote. This will represent a serious denomination for the Venezuelan nation.

As the bill is worth only 2 U.S. cents on the black market, the Socialist President motivated his decision ‘was needed to reduce contraband of the banknotes on the Venezuela-Colombia border’.