Alejandro Velasco
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And so you have these cards, these Cardivi cards, right?
That whenever I would go back to Venezuela for research or to visit family or whatnot, you would come back with these cards that had a certain amount.
And each one was like, I think they increased it to 2,500 at some point, right?
And so what would happen?
There's all sorts of scams.
Let me just preface this by saying the reason why I was making a confession is because this is primarily accessible to the middle classes, people who have relatives, family abroad, people who are studying abroad, whatever the case might have.
So you need, actually, access to dollars to travel and the rest of it.
So this is primarily a middle-class social program billed as a currency exchange system, right?
But yes, so you'd get this card.
And so I'd go and people would buy the card with a $2,500 limit at the official exchange rate.
Call it, I don't know, 10 to one.
But because the black market dollar is the one that reigns supreme, that black market dollar might've been a thousand to one.
So I have bought that dollar at 10 to one, but I can sell it at a thousand to one.
So people would give me these cards, and then I would come to the States, and I would get, say, $2,500 worth of it.
And then I'd come back with the cash.