Venezuelan rush to unload bank notes before deadline
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelans took a break from lining up to buy food and medicine Tuesday and spent their day waiting in crowds to deposit bank notes about to become worthless.
As tempers flared in bank lines, political tensions rose as well, with congress officially charging President Nicolas Maduro with dereliction of duty for driving the South American country into economic ruin.
Maduro made a surprise announcement over the weekend that the 100-bolivar note, having already lost most of its value this year, will be taken out of circulation Wednesday. It is the country’s largest-denominated bill and the most widely used.
Monday was a bank holiday, so starting Tuesday morning people lined up before banks opened waiting to deposit their 100-bolivar notes in their accounts. Wealthier Venezuelans skipped the lines and instead carted backpacks full of bills to spend them at restaurants and upscale shopping centres.