Nearly 99% Sent Back: Report Details How $12.26 Billion in Venezuelan Oil Money Moved Under U.S. Watch

The Trump administration says it has sent back almost 99% of the money raised from selling Venezuelan oil since Nicolás Maduro was removed from power in January, according to a State Department report released Thursday and described by the Associated Press.

The report, prepared by the accounting firm KPMG, put sales of Venezuelan crude, along with smaller amounts of gold, minerals and fertilizer, at $12.26 billion, the AP reported. As of Sept. 30, the end of the federal budget year, $168.6 million remained in an escrow account managed by the Treasury Department.

Under a broad energy deal with Venezuela's interim authorities, the country's crude is sold on the open market and the proceeds go into an account managed by the United States, the AP reported. Venezuelan officials then ask for money to be released for infrastructure and humanitarian needs.

The New York Times, which reviewed the KPMG report earlier this week before its public release, reported that the Treasury set up what is called the Venezuela Custody Account. It was first based in Qatar and moved to Citibank in New York in late January. "The U.S. government established custodial control over Venezuelan natural resources revenue deposits," the report states, according to the Times.

The process has guardrails. Venezuela's central bank requests funds, and U.S. officials disburse them only after checking that each request meets financial-integrity standards, with every transaction signed off by officials from the State Department and the Treasury, the Times reported. The account received deposits starting Jan. 3, the date of the American military intervention, and earned about $12 million in interest through September.

Most of the money went straight back into Venezuela's economy. About $11.7 billion was used to support the bolivar, Venezuela's currency, through foreign-exchange auctions run by commercial banks, according to the Times and NJ.com. The AP reported that most of the funds reached individuals and businesses in Venezuela through those bank transactions.

About $133 million went directly to pay for Venezuelan government services or supplies, the AP reported. Approved payments included $5 million to the Miami-based law firm Greenberg Traurig, nearly $24 million for dialysis and coal-mining equipment, and $8.7 million to settle Venezuela's vaccine debts with the Pan-American Health Organization.

The oil itself is moving through major traders. Trafigura and Vitol accounted for 61% of deposits through September, the Times reported. The names of the 20 companies that bought Venezuelan oil and gold in the first nine months of the year were redacted, but each had to be vetted by the U.S. government for compliance with sanctions and money-laundering rules, which the AP called a sharp break from past practice.

Not every export runs through the account. Chevron and a local producer called NABEP use different arrangements, and much of Venezuela's gold still flows informally to the Middle East, the Times reported. Under a separate deal, NABEP began sending oil to the United States last month, giving the U.S. government 35% of its shares and 20% of its production at below-market prices.

For energy markets and for American taxpayers, this is a story about bringing honest bookkeeping to Venezuela's oil wealth. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said repeatedly that most of Venezuela's oil revenue was lost to corruption and foreign middlemen before Maduro's removal, and the Times reported that its own reporting supports some of those claims.

The figures released Thursday answer the basic question Democrats in Congress have pressed: where did the money go? It did not stay in Washington. Nearly all of it went back to the Venezuelan people and their economy, under rules that require American officials to approve each payment and require oil buyers to clear sanctions checks.

That does not end the questions. The KPMG report does not name the final beneficiaries of the currency auctions, and earlier Times reporting found that a large share of those dollars goes to a small group of agribusinesses and consumer companies. The Treasury, State Department, KPMG and Venezuela's government did not respond to the Times' requests for comment.

Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly promised more transparency and accountability for the account, and they will gain new oversight power in January after winning control of both chambers of Congress. Publishing the full accounting, as the State Department has now done, is the right way to meet that scrutiny head-on.

For a hemisphere that watched Venezuela's oil wealth squandered for a generation, honest books and a currency that can hold its value are worth more than any speech. The test now is whether that discipline lasts long enough for Venezuelans to feel the difference at the grocery store and the gas pump.