Chavez’s Currency Market Takeover Spurs Lines for Dollars
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Every weekday, Ricardo Matamoros wakes up before dawn, travels to a branch of Banco Mercantil in Caracas and gets in line seeking to buy dollars from the central bank. It’s a futile effort, he says.
“They haven’t approved a single one of my requests during 45 days,” said Matamoros, 51, the president of a film production company, as he stood outside the bank on Feb. 7. “Let’s see if it happens today since I’m second in line.”