Photographer: Adriana Loureiro Fernandez/Bloomberg
Venezuelan Refugees Send Billions Back Home, Helping the Lucky Survive
The transfers, as little as $10 a month, trickle into people’s pockets through networks of small businesses and relatives fortunate enough to have a foreign bank account.
Venezuela has essentially stopped exporting oil and in its place, started exporting people.
Oil production has plunged almost two-thirds in the past 16 years, turning the country with the world’s biggest proven reserves into a mere fringe player in global markets. Venezuelans, meanwhile, are fleeing in droves. An estimated 1.6 million have left since 2015—roughly 5 percent of the population. The United Nations now estimates that are some 2.3 million Venezuelans living abroad, while in 2005 there were only 437,000.