Venezuela’s new stations offer fuel, liquor to those who can pay

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been quietly handing over dozens of run-down gasoline stations to local entrepreneurs who turn them into flashy retail complexes and rebrand them under a chain known as Via.

Welcome to Venezuela’s new gasoline stations: They boast digital fuel pumps and high-end, imported liquor. They’re plastered in fresh coats of bright yellow and red paint. And in what’s become a rarity these days, they actually have gasoline to sell — for a price that very few can afford. Over the past six months, the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been quietly handing over dozens of run-down gasoline stations across the country to local entrepreneurs who turned them into these flashy retail complexes and rebranded them under a chain known as Via. It’s the first phase of a desperate and complicated plan to rescue the country from U.S. sanctions that have dealt a final blow to Venezuela’s oil business and choked the nation of fuel supplies so severely that filling stations have been forced to repeatedly shut. The way Maduro sees it: The new ventures will operate as independent businesses and import fuel free of American sanctions that specifically target his administration and those who help it. It’s a fairly straight-forward plan until you look under the hood: The gas station deals that Maduro’s government has done so far aren’t publicly disclosed. Nobody seems to know who ultimately owns them or who runs them. And some are already raising concerns about whether the government itself is still behind the operations.