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Paul Singer’s Elliott winning Venezuela’s forced sale of Citgo that’s proceeding amid Maduro removal

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Houston-based Citgo Petroleum is the last-remaining crown jewel of Venezuela’s international oil assets and it’s in the process of being sold to a refining startup backed by activist investor Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management, following a decade-long legal battle.

At the end of November, Elliott-backed Amber Energy won an oft-delayed and hotly contested court-ordered auction for Citgo at a discounted price of $5.9 billion. The company also has to pay more than $2 billion for holders of defaulted Venezuelan bonds. Legal appeals from Venezuela and other bidders remain pending, but the deal is still expected to close by the end of this year, according to energy analysts.

The auction victory for Elliott and Amber came just prior to the Trump administration deposing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on January 4. That move potentially positions Citgo and other U.S. refiners to receive more barrels of the heavy-grade Venezuelan crude oil desired by the Gulf Coast refineries.

Citgo has three U.S. refineries, plus pipeline and terminal assets. Its network refines 800,000-barrels a day at sites in Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois. It has branding and fuel marketing deals with 4,000 independently owned retail outlets throughout the East Coast, Midwest, and South.

Despite Citgo’s 115-year history, the company has been quietly and entirely owned by Venezuela and its state-owned oil company PDVSA since 1990. The company became a target in the legal fight to pay off creditors who lost oil assets, mining rights, and more when they were expropriated under Venezuela’s former socialist ruler, Hugo Chavez, almost 20 years ago.

Amber CEO Gregory Goff declined comment for this story.

The other primary beneficiary in the Citgo sale is oil giant ConocoPhillips, which holds more than half of the creditors’ roughly $20 billion in claims. The Chavez regime seized Conoco’s oil assets in 2007.

President Trump is pushing Conoco, Exxon Mobil, and others to return to Venezuela to rebuild the infrastructure and pump more oil, although there’s hesitancy in the industry because of the high costs, political uncertainty, and weak oil prices. Trump is schedule to meet with top oil executives today.

“ConocoPhillips is monitoring developments in Venezuela and their potential implications for global energy supply and stability. It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments,” ConocoPhillips spokesman Dennis Nuss said in a statement.

“We will continue with our collection efforts, which are made in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations,” he added.

A long legal fight and a political minefield

The legal fight between Venezuela and its creditors had brewed for years until 2018 when a small, defunct Canadian mining company, Crystallex, won a federal court ruling saying it could pursue Citgo’s assets to collect more than $1 billion it allegedly lost when Venezuela expropriated foreign assets in 2011. Citgo formally cut operational ties with Venezuela in 2019. Crystallex and Conoco both support the ruling in favor of Elliott’s Amber.

Most Big Oil and refining players stayed out of the Citgo bidding because of all the legal and geopolitical complications, energy analysts said.

Domestically, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, a frequent GOP critic of Trump, was quick to criticize the military actions in Venezuela and used the opportunity to slam Elliott. “Paul Singer, globalist Republican mega-donor who’s already spent [$1 million] to defeat me in the next election, stands to make billions of dollars on his distressed Citgo investment, now that this administration has taken over Venezuela,” Massie posted on social media.

Venezuela and its state oil company, PDVSA, still lay claim to Citgo. They regard the auction as a sham legal process in an enemy nation’s courtroom in Delaware.

It’s unclear if Maduro’s ouster will impact Venezuela’s and PDVSA’s longshot appeals to the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

The sale also must be approved by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The White House did not reply to requests for comment for this story.

Also appealing is Amber’s top bidding opponent, Gold Reserve. That company made a larger but potentially riskier offer for Citgo that wasn’t deemed as financially certain by the court. Gold Reserve, a smaller creditor impacted by expropriation, has bemoaned the apprehension of its lawyer in Venezuela, José Ignacio Moreno Suárez, who has been detained for more than two years and “subject to intense torture and deprivation.” He remains captive.

“We applaud the actions by the Trump Administration to bring Maduro to justice, and we look forward to doing our part to assist with a return to peace and prosperity in Venezuela and the expeditious release of … Suarez,” Gold Reserve Vice Chairman Paul Rivett said in a statement.

Chevron is ready to roll

A group of imprisoned U.S. Citgo executives were released in 2022 after five years in prison. The Houston-based executives—five U.S. citizens and one permanent resident dubbed the “Citgo Six”—were arrested in Venezuela for alleged embezzlement and accused of betraying the government. They were eventually released in a prisoner exchange.

While Citgo and other Gulf Coast refiners—Phillips 66, Valero Energy, PBF Energy—could stand to benefit from a larger influx of Venezuelan oil, arguably the biggest winner would be Chevron, the only American company to remain in Venezuela long term, according to Ajay Parmar, director of oil markets analytics for ICIS.

Currently operating under a special license, Chevron could potentially increase its Venezuelan operations, pumping out more oil and sending the barrels to its U.S. refineries, capturing the full value chain.

“Chevron has wanted to produce more [Venezuelan] oil for a long time. They’re the big winner here,” Parmar said. “It is still great; it is still good for [Citgo and other] U.S. refiners.”



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Wife of Renee Good, the Minnesota woman killed in ICE shooting: ‘We had whistles. They had guns’

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The wife of Renee Good, the woman shot and killed in her car by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis, says the couple had stopped to support their neighbors on the day of the shooting and described the mother of three as leaving a legacy of kindness.

“We had whistles. They had guns,” Becca Good said in a written statement Friday that was provided to Minnesota Public Radio.

The statement was her first public comment about the death of Renee Good, 37, who was killed Wednesday after three Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrounded her Honda Pilot SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from the couple’s home. Video taken by bystanders show an officer approaching the SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.

The vehicle begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

Trump administration officials have painted Renee Good as a domestic terrorist who tried to run over an officer with her vehicle. State and local officials in Minneapolis, as well as protesters, have rejected that characterization.

Becca Good has not responded to calls and messages from The Associated Press. Her statement provided no further detail about the day of the shooting and instead focused on memorializing her wife.

The couple had only recently moved to Minneapolis and were raising Renee Good’s 6-year-old son from a previous marriage.

Becca said Renee was a Christian who “knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.”

She thanked the people all across America and the world who had reached out in support of their family.

“Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled,” Becca Good wrote. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.”

Far from the worst-of-the-worst criminals President Donald Trump said his immigration crackdown would target, Good was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado who apparently was never charged with anything beyond a single traffic ticket.

In social media accounts, she described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” She said she was currently “experiencing Minneapolis,” displaying a pride emoji on her Instagram account. A profile picture posted to Pinterest shows her smiling and holding a young child against her cheek, along with posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.

Her ex-husband, who asked not to be named out of concern for the safety of the two now-teenage children he had with Renee Good while they were married, told the AP on Wednesday that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind.

Becca Good said the couple, who had previously lived in Kansas City, Missouri, had settled in Minneapolis after an “extended road trip.” She said people they encountered in the Twin Cities had provided a strong sense that “they were looking out for each other.”

“We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness,” Becca wrote. “I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”



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Bessent’s visit to Minnesota comes with more vows to crack down on fraud as tensions flare with state, Somalia government

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The Treasury Department is taking a closer look at financial transactions between Minnesotan residents and businesses and Somalia as the federal government ramps up its immigration crackdown in the state, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters on Friday during a visit to the state.

Bessent said his agency has launched a series of actions to combat fraud in the state and has launched investigations into four businesses that people use to wire money to family members abroad to do more to scrutinize transactions. He did not name the businesses.

His visit to the state coincides with protests in Minneapolis after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a woman in a residential neighborhood south of downtown on Wednesday, leading to a clash between federal and local leaders.

President Donald Trump has targeted the Somali diaspora in the Democratic-led state with immigration enforcement actions and has made a series of disparaging comments about the community, directing Bessent to uncover more fraud. The Treasury first announced last month that it would begin targeting money service businesses, focusing on remittances to Somalia.

The department’s actions have been prompted in part by a series of fraud cases, including a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future accused of stealing coronavirus pandemic aid meant for school meals. Prosecutors have put the losses from that case at $300 million.

Gov. Tim Walz, before he ended his bid to serve a third term this week, said that fraud will not be tolerated in Minnesota and that his administration “will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.” Walz, who came under heavy criticism from Republicans who said his administration should have caught the Feeding Our Future fraud earlier, said he was “furious” with “criminals that preyed on the system that was meant to feed children.”

The founder of Feeding our Future, Aimee Bock, was charged with multiple counts involving conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery and was convicted in March while maintaining her innocence.

Bessent declined to comment on specific investigations but said he had met with several financial institutions on Friday to ask them to do more to prevent fraud. The department has not disclosed which institutions Bessent spoke with.

Key Treasury actions include Financial Crimes Enforcement Network investigations into Minnesota-based money services businesses, enhanced transaction reporting requirements for international transfers from Hennepin and Ramsey counties, and alerts to financial institutions on identifying fraud tied to child nutrition programs.

“Treasury will deploy all tools to bring an end to this egregious unchecked fraud and hold perpetrators to account,” Bessent told reporters on Friday.

Bessent’s announcement was met with some criticism. Nicholas Anthony, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Bessent is “building a legacy of financial surveillance and control.”

“The announcement that he is stopping Americans from sending their money abroad and increasing surveillance under the Bank Secrecy Act should be condemned,” Anthony said.

Some Somali leaders said last month they had received anecdotal reports about community members being detained by federal agents but had no details. Those leaders and allies including Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have vowed to protect the community.

During a speech on Thursday about the Republican Trump administration’s economic agenda at the Economic Club of Minnesota, Bessent referred to the alleged fraud, without mentioning the Somali community that his department is targeting.

“I am here this week to signal the U.S. Treasury’s unwavering commitment to recovering stolen funds, prosecuting fraudulent criminals, preventing scandals like this from ever happening again, and investigating similar schemes state by state,” Bessent said.



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Telluride Ski Resort begins to reopen after striking ski patrollers accept a contract

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Telluride Ski Resort in southwestern Colorado began to reopen Friday after a vote by striking ski patrollers to accept a contract and return to work.

The resort shut down Dec. 27 after the Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association rejected a company pay proposal. The resort remained closed except for beginner carpets and a lift serving two beginner runs that were staffed this week by managers and temporary ski patrollers.

With help from artificial snowmaking and a foot (30 centimeters) of recent snowfall, more lifts and runs will open starting this weekend, resort officials said in a statement.

“We are confident that this last offer represented a fair compromise,” resort representative Steve Swenson said in the statement.

Neither the resort nor the ski patrol union divulged details of the deal endorsed by the union with a Thursday vote. Negotiations had been ongoing since June.

The union sought pay increases from $21 to $28 an hour for new patrollers and from as little as $30 to almost $50 for the most experienced ones.

“While we are ultimately very disappointed to not address our broken wage structure, we are immensely proud of our efforts that have led to this financial movement. We are even prouder of the recognition and implementation of our supervisors into the unit,” read a union statement on social media Thursday.

Ski patrollers elsewhere in the Rocky Mountain region have been unionizing. Some argue for more pay on the grounds that the cost of living in ski towns is high and that they are responsible for safety.

Patroller duties include attending to injured skiers and the controlled release of avalanches with explosives when nobody is in range.

An almost two-week ski patrol strike a year ago closed many runs and caused long lift lines at Utah’s Park City Mountain Resort. That strike ended when Colorado-based Vail Resorts acceded to demands including a $2-an-hour base pay increase and raises for senior ski patrollers.

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