About 20 tons of gold from Venezuela's central bank was ready to be hauled away Tuesday on a Russian airline's Boeing 777 that landed in Caracas a day earlier, a Venezuelan lawmaker wrote on Twitter.
The destination of the $840 million in gold bars was unknown, but a source told Bloomberg News that it represented about 20 percent of the country's holding of the metal. The gold was set aside for loading, the report said.To paraphrase Kevin Williamson, socialism always begins with a guy in fatigues promising free stuff; it always ends with the same guy, dressed like Captain Crunch, getting on a private jet in the middle of the night.