Venezuela’s resource wealth fuels strategic and criminal conflict

Two themes drive the current crisis: allegations of regime links to armed groups and contested election legitimacy, and increasingly, geopolitics around hydrocarbons and mineral rights.
U.S. rhetoric has highlighted seized energy claims and the strategic value of Venezuelan oil, while opposition figures are pitching the country’s vast resource base to international investors.
Venezuela combines the world’s largest oil reserves with major gas deposits, Latin America’s biggest gold reserves, significant iron, bauxite and diamond holdings, and substantial rare-earth elements—notably coltan and thorium—used in electronics, EVs and defense systems.
In 2016 the government designated about 112,000 km2 south of the Orinoco River as the Orinoco Mining Arc, listing multi-thousand-ton estimates for gold, nickel, coltan and diamonds. Instead of large-scale, regulated extraction, the zone has become a mosaic of illegal mining, smuggling, political–military corruption and severe environmental damage.
Production and marketing involve state-linked “strategic alliances,” international partners and illicit actors including ELN, FARC dissidents and Tren de Aragua. Investigations and NGOs report extensive smuggling—much mineral output bypasses state coffers; one estimate put state receipts at roughly 14% in 2024.
That mix of strategic minerals, opaque trade routes to processors abroad, and environmental collapse is intensifying international pressure and shaping policy debates over Venezuela’s future.