In a story that is not being given any significant coverage by international wire services and/or Venezuela's opposition-controlled print and broadcast media, it is reported that Customs & Excise officers at the Caracas (Simon Bolivar) international airport in Maiquetia have seized a 25-kilo (55 lbs.) sack said to hold an illegal shipment of United States banknotes to the tune of US$2,500,000.

• The airport raid has been kept under wraps since December 30 when the cache was discovered off an American Airlines flight 935 that had arrived from Miami a day earlier.

Investigations show that the US greenbacks were part of an urgent dispatch from Bank of America to the Caracas-based Italcambio handled by Transporte de Valores Bancarios C.A. (Transvalcar) ... further interrogation of customs clearing personnel over the New Year's holiday shows that there have been at least seven (7) previous operations in which an estimated $21 million was imported to Venezuela, allegedly bypassing strict currency control regulations.

Detectives have already tracked down a consignment which arrived at Maiquetia on December 18 in two sacks each weighing 45 kilos ... a conservative reckoning of the value has been set at $3.2 million.

Police sources say they received an anonymous tip-off from airport officials and that an immediate mobilization of National Guard (GN), State Political & Security (DISIP) police, IRS/Seniat, Exchange Control Authority (CADIVI), State Attorney's Office and Vargas court officials was set in motion ... the seizure was video-taped under strict conditions of secrecy and the banknotes were taken under armed escort to the security of vaults at the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) in the early hours of New Year's Eve.

A flora of questions are now circulation about why the nationally-operating Italcambio foreign exchange agency should have been involved in the apparently illegal introduction of as much as $21 million to Venezuela.

Aside from the legalities (which must be determined by the courts) it is already being suggested that the extremely wealthy political opposition to President Hugo Chavez Frias' government was planning to flood the exchange market causing further economic damage. Finance (Hacienda) Ministry and IRS/Seniat officials say that such sums should ordinarily be handled via commercial banks and with the approval of both CADIVI and the BCV.

• Questions are also being raised as to the complicity or otherwise of US officials and there appears to be a wall of silence from usually verbose press spokespersons at the US bunker on Colinas de Valle Arriba where the New Year 2004 has been ushered in with the news of US Ambassador Charles S. Shapiro's imminent removal from Caracas.

Pro-government newspaper Diario VEA asks if the US$ are narco-traffickers' profits or if they are intended to supply an extremely active black market for US$ ... alternative Diario VEA theories are that the cash is to finance continuing opposition "terrorist" actions to destabilize the Chavez Frias government ...it remains, however, clear that the US banknotes entered Venezuela without the previous authorization of competent authorities.

It is already known that Italcambio's owner, businessmen Carlos Dorado, has been identified as one of the foremost financiers of anti-government actions, he has been a ferocious anti-government op-ed columnist in El Universal and took a leading role in the short-lived Carmona Estanga coup d'etat in April 2002.

As Venezuelan IRS/Seniat and Central Bank officials work feverishly this weekend to establish lines of responsibility, it has been revealed that the a Bank of America official authorized the latest $2.5 million shipment of banknotes given questionably certified documentary line-authorization dated December 24 (2003) from the Venezuelan Oficina Tecnica de Administracion Cambiaria (OTACA) -- Exchange Administration Technical Office -- which demonstrably does NOT exist!