💰 Disputed oil and stolen copper

The Venezuela-Guyana conflict over Essequibo reaches The Hague. And a sophisticated copper-thieving gang is busted in Chile.

Ignacio Portes & Jorge C. Carrasco

VENEZUELA

Venezuela-Guyana dispute over Essequibo reaches The Hague

A lot has changed in Venezuela since the US capture of Nicolás Maduro, most notably in the rhetoric of interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who shifted from confrontation to cooperation toward Washington. But Rodríguez has remained defiant towards her neighbors, Guyana, proudly claiming sovereignty over the disputed, oil-rich Essequibo region, which makes up 70% of Guyanese territory.

The latest spat came after a tour of the Caribbean, during which Rodríguez wore a pin depicting Essequibo as part of Venezuela. Guyanese President Irfaan Ali said the photos of other Caribbean leaders next to Rodríguez’s pin could be misconstrued as “acquiescence or tolerance” of her territorial claims, a stark contrast to the Caribbean Community’s broad support for Guyana in the conflict.

“Guyana’s president is making a scandal because I use this pin that has the only Venezuelan map I have known throughout my life, which includes the disputed region,” Rodríguez said. “It seems that they are even upset about our clothing choices.”

The clash came as the two sides readied for a week of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which kicked off yesterday with a presentation from Guyanese Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd, and will be followed by Venezuela’s arguments tomorrow.

Todd stated that “facing a larger and more powerful neighbor’s designs on our territory has not only threatened ​our peace and security, but it has also held back our development,” describing Venezuela’s claims on the Essequibo as an “existential” concern for their nation.

Guyana says the dispute was settled in 1899, during an arbitration between Venezuela and British Guiana, which said the territory belonged to the colony. Caracas argues that the agreement was reneged on in 1966 during negotiations between Venezuela, the UK and soon-to-be-independent Guyana, adding that the British illegally expanded westward in the 19th century.

👉 Why it matters. The development of offshore oil rigs in the Stabroek Block, roughly 200 kilometers off Guyana’s coast, has turned the country into the fastest-growing nation in the world, expanding at eye-popping yearly rates that reached 63% in 2022 and 44% in 2024, as firms such as Exxon, Chevron and China’s CNOOC invest heavily in the area.

Guyana’s economic success story prompted Venezuela to raise the tone of its long-standing territorial claims, including a national consultation organized by Maduro’s government in 2023 that questioned the ICJ’s jurisdiction and called for the creation of a new Essequibo province under Venezuelan control.

This raised concerns that Caracas would use force to disrupt the growing oil trade in order to stake a claim in the region. Risk analysts spoke of a “constant threat” for those “managing logistics” and “making sure that ships are getting around safely.”

But the scenario changed after Maduro’s ousting, which reasserted the US military’s role as the ultimate guarantor of stability in the region. With Rodríguez now towing Washington’s line about oil and foreign policy, the risks of unilateral Venezuelan action are much lower.

Rodríguez’s nationalist rhetoric can serve as a convenient pivot to redirect the energies of loyal Chavistas that can no longer antagonize the US, since the claims precede Venezuela’s besieged left-wing movement by decades. But from Caracas to DC, everyone knows Rodríguez is unlikely to act forcefully on her claims in the current context.

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CHILE

Copper gang raid shines light on metal looting epidemic

Waking up to find that your power lines, door handles or water meter box pipes have been stolen is not an uncommon experience in parts of Latin America. The problem has become so routine that internet providers in some of the region’s neighborhoods have simply stopped replacing their infrastructure, rendering their services effectively unavailable.

The scheme is simple: take anything made of copper and look for a buyer who will melt it and resell it for a profit. But are these crimes committed merely by lone wolves and desperate individuals looking for a quick buck, or is there an operational structure behind them? According to Chilean investigators, the latter is more common than one might think.

In a country famed for its legal copper exports, police officers carried out 49 raids across seven regions, arresting 25 suspects, seizing nearly 200 tonnes of the metal, as well as dozens of vehicles and firearms. This dismantled what they say is a network that stole, processed and illegally exported USD 917 million worth of copper over the last five years. 

The so-called “Operation High Voltage” exposed a criminal organization that operated with a level of sophistication and scale more commonly associated with drug trafficking than metal theft, reports said, including a clear division of labor with “crews that steal cables, intermediaries who store and process the material, and transporters who move it across borders.”

The group carried out several major heists, targeting Chile’s electrical and telecommunications infrastructure as well as industrial sites, often leaving communities without power. The metal was then sent to clandestine warehouses, stripped of insulation, melted down and reformatted before entering an export pipeline designed to disguise its true origin, with China as the most common destination.

👉 Why it matters. Copper’s value has soared by a factor of 10 over the past 25 years, becoming essential for industrializing nations as well as for those transitioning to cleaner energy. The metal is Chile’s main export, and transnational criminal networks operating on the fringes of the industry have created risks for this lucrative business, while also placing law and order atop of Chile’s political agenda.

To Marco Ramírez, head of Chile’s police unit against organized robbery, the network’s “systematic and permanent extraction of copper from essential public services,” followed by industrial processing and international commercialization, showed that they were dealing with sophisticated professionals.

Processed copper was moved by truck to Iquique, where it was loaded into shipping containers and falsely declared as scrap metal before being sent to China, using Peru as a transit point to further complicate traceability. Customs officials eventually uncovered containers labeled as scrap that in fact contained copper cables, bars and other objects owned by Chilean power companies.

The financial dimension was also elaborate. Prosecutors allege the group relied on a web of front companies, scrap dealers and falsified documentation to launder profits. By simulating legitimate exports, the organization even reportedly obtained more than 58 billion Chilean pesos (around USD 65 million) in fraudulent value-added tax refunds, turning these theft operations into a double whammy for public finances.

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QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Last week, we asked you which of a list of four arguments was NOT used by Argentina in its claim over the Malvinas (Falkland Islands). The answer was “local self-determination,” which is central to the UK’s claim but is deemed invalid by Argentina, which argues that British transplants were sent to replace locals expelled in 1833.

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QUICK CATCH-UP

👋 Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya and Culiacán Mayor Juan de Dios Gámez announced they would step down from their positions temporarily after US courts indicted them over alleged links to drug trafficking organizations. But a larger conflict is still pending over their potential extradition, which could open the door to testimony that may implicate higher-ranking Mexican politicians.

📉 A report from the INEGI statistics bureau said that Mexico’s economy shrank by 0.8% in Q1. The number comes from the seasonally adjusted comparison with Q4 2025, while the year-on-year comparison with Q1 2025 shows a modest 0.2% jump, confirming the slowdown in the continent’s second-largest economy.

📜 Bernardo Arévalo, Guatemala’s progressive president, presented a nominee list to replace Attorney General Consuelo Porras when her term runs out on May 17. Porras has been Arévalo’s main rival since her team tried to stop his party from taking office after his unlikely win in the 2023 elections — marked by several dubious bans of opposition candidates. 

⚖️ Former Republican Congressman David Rivera of Miami was declared guilty of leading an illegal lobbying campaign worth USD 50 million on behalf of Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela during Donald Trump’s first term in office. Rivera was paid as a consultant by state-owned oil firm PDVSA and coordinated efforts with Venezuelan media magnate Raúl Gorrín, who is currently under arrest.