The Wall Street Journal mentions the rampant black market in Venezuela.

“Venezuela has developed a special business culture, where the game is played amid high inflation and other distortions,” says Venezuela-born Latin America specialist Gilbert W. Merkx, who directs the Duke University Center for International Studies. “You can either get very rich or lose a lot of money playing the game, and it always gets more complicated as the distortions get worse.”

Right now, the game is on. Venezuela’s 22.5% inflation rate is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Its currency has lost half its value in the past year on a thriving black market for dollars. To prevent capital flight, Mr. Chávez banned overseas money transfers and has barred Venezuela’s media from mentioning the black market. Some now call it the “market that cannot be mentioned.”

Currency Trading

Bankers have made money playing the huge gap between the official and the black-market exchange rates. One common way, which is legally permitted: buying dollar-bonds from the government at the official rate of 2.15 “strong bolivars” per dollar, and reselling them to investors for a price close to the black-market rate of 5.50 per dollar.

Read more on black market currency traders in Venezuela here.