civicmon

No it isn't. This is legit. I read about this a few months ago. It's tricky, but you need locals to make it work. If you're pretty gutsy it can be done if you know Spanish.. i'll explain....

Venezuela has a massive currency black market. Go to CCS lately? The Immigration agents want a crack at your dollars and often quote an inflated VEB rate. They usually offer low rates than the street, so go to the customs desk and everyone there will offer you VEB for dollars. If you really get gutsy, leave the customs hall and deal with the money changers outside. There's more people wanting dollars than people with dollars. Negotiate a good rate. Spanish is ESSENTIAL or you'll never get the real street rate.

If you have Venezuelan friends, they'll love to take your dollars off your hands. Just give them a call.

See, the gov't fixes the rate at such an artificially low rate that the black market is everything. People can't find staples such as milk/eggs since they're bought at the official rate by insiders and sold at the black market rate.

Panama and Aruba are FLOODED with Venezuelans these days. They show up, take $5000 cash advances off credit cards (max allowed by law per month) and get USD from the Panama or Aruban casinos, fly home that afternoon with $5000 in cold USD, change it at the unofficial rate of nearly 4800VEB, pay the cards off and pocket the nearly $4000-5000 (at the VEB street rate) exchange difference. They're all over the place, everyone knows about it and no one is stopping anyone. COPA Airlines loves this, their CCS/Maracaibo flights which were money losers are suddenly oversold 5 days a week.

It's essential to have a local friend to get tickets at this rate. They need to write the check for the airline tickets. By Venezuelan law, all business transactions MUST be done in VEB. This is the kicker. They cannot ask for USD or make payment in such a requirement. They can use a credit card too, but the card will charge at the official rate which is counterproductive, unless you can pay the card with converted USD.

So, you have a friend whose cousin is in CCS, give him a good amount of USD and let him do the talking and you should be ok.

This is legit... but it's not easy unless you got a contact in Venezuela.

EDIT: I'm not a mod nor do I speak for one, but this is legal in my world.

What is a very large gray area is the changing of USD to VEB. I'm not 100% sure of the legality of changing through an unofficial channel such as a guy in a black Explorer with a briefcase, but this has been going on in other forms since at least 2001 when the peg was established. However, enacting the transaction in airline tickets is no different than Orbitz or Expedia, seller offering a ticket and a buyer with hard cash looking to buy.

Google this topic if you think I'm nuts. What you find will re-enforce this. The black market rate in VEB is everything these days and it's getting tough to live w/o any access to USD.

EDIT 2: My info may be dated. I read that the Chavez Gov't was going to ratchet up the rate but I'm not sure if that actually occurred. What I did read was that even the new rate they were proposing was still very far out of line with the street rate. Inflation is extremely high (20-30%) but interest rates are very low which is helping fuel the $$/VEB gap.

This article from Sept 2007 explains the black market pricing. It also talks about the Credit Card Advances in Aruba and Curacao. Key point:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/...berg/bxbux.php