Venezuela: Socialists Ask King Charles for Frozen Gold Assets for Earthquake Relief

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For more than 40 years, Venezuela has housed dozens of tonnes of gold reserves at the Bank of England. However, about 160 tonnes, representing an overwhelming majority of the reserves, were repatriated during the early 2010s by order of late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez and stored in Venezuelan state coffers. The Venezuelan regime never publicly disclosed the exact fate of the repatriated reserves.

According to Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil, there are some 32 tonnes of Venezuelan gold still stored at the Bank of England — with an estimated value of approximately $4.2 billion. For years, deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro sought to repatriate the last reserves but these were frozen by the Bank of England amid a legal conflict that erupted after Maduro illegitimately clung to power and refused to step down.

Rodríguez, during an official regime broadcast, announced that she will request the release of the frozen gold assets by King Charles. She also called for the end of all sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries on the Venezuelan socialists, implemented in response to the lengthy list of human rights violations committed against its own people.

“I have decided to send a letter to the King of England, among others, calling for the release of the gold held at the Bank of England,” Rodríguez said. “That gold belongs to our people, and it must be available to address — well, the terrible, tragic consequences of this double earthquake. Venezuela has the resources to recover, to get back on its feet.”

The Buckingham Palace has not publicly commented on the request at press time.

Venezuela was struck by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake, followed by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake seconds later during the evening hours of June 24 in what is now widely described as the worst natural disaster of the nation’s modern history. Most of the devastation occurred in the northern state of La Guaira, located near Venezuela’s Capital District and the city of Caracas. As of Thursday, the Venezuelan regime’s official death toll indicates that at least 3,811 individuals died and 16,740 were injured.

Per the Venezuelan regime, at least 17,907 individuals were documented to have lost their homes. The earthquakes caused the collapse of 190 buildings and damaged at least 856. However, the American space agency NASA, using satellite imagery, estimated that as many as 60,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The United Nations estimates that some 50,000 people are deemed missing.

Mexican Army rescue workers search for people trapped in collapsed buildings after earthquakes struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Nicolás Maduro’s efforts to gain control of Venezuela’s last remaining tonnes of gold stored at the Bank of England were thwarted after he held a sham election in 2018 to illegitimately cling to power for an additional six-year period, starting in 2019. The United States, the United Kingdom, and dozens of countries around the free world did not recognize Maduro’s “election” and did not recognize him as the legitimate president of Venezuela once he came to power from 2019 onwards.

The situation prompted the Venezuelan National Assembly — at the time led by the Venezuelan opposition — to act upon what the nation’s constitution defines as a “rupture of democratic order” and appoint its then-leader Juan Guaidó as the interim President of Venezuela. The power struggle between Maduro and Guaidó led to a years-long legal battle over control of the gold stored at the Bank of England, which was put on hold to preserve it.

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Ultimately, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in 2021 in favor of Guaidó’s administration, blocking the Maduro regime from accessing the reserves. The British top court argued that, as Guaidó was Venezuela’s legitimate head of state and not Maduro, the now-deposed dictator had no right to access the frozen gold reserves. Maduro would sporadically lash out at the United Kingdom over the ruling and in 2022 he accused London of “stealing” Venezuela’s gold.

Much like Maduro’s accusations, Delcy Rodriguez, who served as his vice president, also lashed out at the Bank of England for safeguarding the nation’s gold reserves. In 2020, Rodríguez accused the Bank of England of committing the “crime of extermination” after a judge ruled against the Maduro regime. At the time, the Venezuelan socialists argued that they needed to repatriate the gold to use it to fund its response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Rodríguez has been in charge of the Venezuelan socialist regime after Maduro was arrested on January 3 through a U.S. law enforcement operation in Caracas.

In addition to requesting control of the $4.2 billion worth of gold reserves stored at the Bank of England, the Venezuelan regime reportedly announced that it is also seeking access to about $5 billion worth of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have also remained frozen over the past years as a result of Maduro’s illegitimate rule of Venezuela.