Sherm,

Maduro's government has been getting billions of USD from gold mining in the las Cristinas (Crystallex) and Las Brisas (Gold Reserve) mines for years now under the control of the Venezuelan military and the Colombia guerrillas that crossed the border to get sanctuary protection from the Maduro regime. The gold has been sold under the table mostly in the Middle East and used to shore up the Maduro Government finances. Venezuela has also managed to sell around 400K barrels of oil per day in the black market (e.g. trans-shipments in international waters) versus the 1.5 million barrels it was selling before the sanctions. The way to survive for Maduro with only 1/3 of oil sales has been by selling the country's gold reserves and gold production from the mines it expropriated saying it was necessary to protect the environment. If you Google gold production in Venezuela you will find plenty of reports and photographs of the ecological disaster the government-sponsored gold mining has caused and continues to cause.

Maduro's government has in fact generated far more money from exploiting the gold mines over the last four years that the awards it is avoiding to pay.