Crisis begets business opportunities, and the Venezuelan tragedy, especially from 2010 onwards, sure wrought upon a lot of businesses, some more shrewd and amoral than others.

If you partake in such ventures, which rely on the continued existence of the Venezuelan tragedy, would you want the crisis to end?

That question is something I seriously started asking myself since at least 2017, right as the Venezuelan “opposition” leadership essentially sold out the protesters and poured water into the fires, all in the name of a perverse status quo — and in a complete disrespect for the young men and women that had died during those days.

As the years went by, that question remained in my head, resurfacing every time the “opposition” did the same thing, and every time the country’s collapse gave forth to new “solutions,” all of which depend on the perpetuation of the status quo and the crisis to continue existing. In simpler words: The Venezuelan disaster was, is, and will continue to be good business for so many groups across the entire Venezuelan spectrum, and on so many levels.

“Bellerophon cannot be a hero without the Chimera” is how I’d best resume the past 26 years of Venezuela, the socialist Maduro regime, the opposition, the “opposition,” and those that made denouncing both sides their livelihood.

Take for instance Nicolás Maduro and the top brass of the socialist regime. Their entire premise is based around the false claim that they are the “heroes” of this story, a revolutionary vanguard of some sorts that’s allegedly fighting a good fight to save Venezuela and defend it from its enemies, both foreign and domestic.

The regime has deliberately forced most of the country to live in inhumane poverty conditions, it is all part of their plan. By doing so, they force hundreds of thousands to depend on their meager stipends, subsidized fuel rations, and low quality food programs — if they fix the underlying problems (which they caused) that led to these programs existing, they would lose this grip on people.

There’s also the fact that the Venezuelan regime is a narco-socialist one, in which Maduro and many others are also leading figures of the Cartel of the Suns, so perpetuating their regime (and thus the crisis) is paramount to their continued safety and survival, as many of them are actively wanted by U.S. authorities on numerous drug trafficking charges.

Can a hero be a hero without a villain? The same can be said about most of the Venezuelan “opposition.” If the villain of their tale ends, so too would end their modus vivendi of dozens of politicians that have spent the past years travelling around the world, giving interviews to the media or presentations (rightfully) denouncing the socialist regime for what it is.

The existence of one feeds the other’s livelihood, with millions of Venezuelans forced to continue a descent into oblivion in the name of the status quo.

You can also find many examples of this dilemma inside Venezuela, not just on politicians. The continued collapse of the nation’s infrastructure, and the severe, often inhumane water, power, and gas shortages have given forth unscrupulous businesses that remedy the situation.

In the case of water, for example, my dad lives in a town that only gets running water for 2-3 days every two months or so. The rest of the time he and many others rely on cistern trucks that may or may not be owned by people in cahoots with the regime. If the regime fixes the water situation — as if they’d ever do such a thing — these businesses would crumble, so for them, the perpetuation of the crisis is crucial to keep their pockets full.

Back in 2019 a relative of mine got upset at me because I refused to use my “platform” to promote this shady entrepreneurship between him and a friend of his who lives in the United States. They had this short-lived business that involved people purchasing stuff from abroad (specifically, hard to find items) and they would deliver them to Venezuelans.

Many, but so many services like this still exist to this day, and they would lose all their raison d’être if the crisis were to end.

The most notable example would be remittances, a controversial subject not just for Venezuela, I know. As a result of roughly 15 years’ worth of draconian currency control laws, Venezuela has historically had a black market exchange rate with substantially better rates when it comes to obtaining bolivars. Although the regime finally allowed the free sending and reception of remittances, remittance services such as Western Union must operate using the official rates established by the Central Bank of Venezuela (controlled by the socialist regime).

In light of this predicament, there are countless individuals and businesses that act as remittance escrow, offering better rates for your highly-coveted dollars or Euros while ensuring that they get to keep a commission fee. Should the economy ever be fixed, and Venezuela finally have a free flow of foreign currency trade, these would surely cease existing, right?

Another example, and the one which I despise the most by far, has to do with migration services. Political asylum for Venezuelans, something that has “exploded” in recent years as a result of the collapse of the nation and the socialist regime’s brutal persecution of dissidents, has become a product that you can just buy.

Back in 2018, someone — largely because he wanted to gloat to me of the fact — told me that a certain socialist mayor availed himself of the crisis to sell “asylum packages” to people. For a price, they would provide you with enough forged documentation to justify your court case in the United States, including newspaper “reports” from small outlets in cahoots with them that could further serve as evidence of your alleged persecution. The person that told me found out because he happened to work in that mayor’s office.

Years later, regime individuals would go onto accusing opposition figureheads of engaging in the selfsame practice. At the same time, it was absurdly easy to find Instagram ad posts of immigration attorneys offering U.S. asylum “packages” as if it was a product that you could just buy on a store or order online.

Discounts, seasonal offers. “Travel with your [Biden admin’s CHNV] parole” was something you’d see travel agencies offer as well when offering flight plans to Miami and whatnot. Even though I’m an asocial pariah, the amount of known cases I’ve seen of people committing immigration fraud is just sickening and disappointing, to say the least.

The same can be said across a wide array of businesses, there’s just so many and so many groups of interest (political and economical) that would prefer to keep things as-is. From a guy that owns two cistern trucks to countries much larger and powerful than Venezuela, with the one constant being the Venezuelan people who are forced to live, wither, and die in the perverse status quo.

The consequences of the Venezuelan crisis, too much of it has devolved into a live service, one that would not exist if a political solution to the country was finally found — but it’s hard to remain hopeful when you’ve seen so much corruption through the years. It’s why I’m sick of it all.

But not all is decadent corruption. Just as I’ve seen cases of unscrupulous people benefiting from this disaster across all levels, beneath all the decadence, death, and despair, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting good people who, instead of seeing political or economical profit from the Venezuelan tragedy, are instead trying their best to help others. I’ve seen many examples of this in this first year of my life out of Venezuela.

Those are the Venezuelans I respect and the ones I’m proud of sharing a nationality with, even if I lived a life detached from what it means to be a proper Venezuelan, culturally speaking.