海角大神

Venezuela withdrew its 100-bolivar notes on Thursday,听promising to introduce听new banknotes to replace the bill that makes up almost half of the country鈥檚 circulating bank notes, just 72 hours after the policy was announced by President Nicolas Maduro.

The switch is an attempt by Mr. Maduro鈥檚 government to tamp down inflation rates, estimated at around 500 percent, by targeting smugglers who traffic state-subsidized goods on the black market, which has mushroomed as the rest of the oil-based economy has fallen. Maduro accuses Colombia-based smugglers of hoarding bolivars outside of the country in order to buoy the black market, part of a larger effort he describes as an 鈥渆conomic war.鈥�

Critics say the government鈥檚 longstanding price and currency controls are the real root of the economic crisis, and call the campaign against black marketeers a distraction. The campaign has aggravated Venezuela鈥檚 own version of an ongoing border drama with Colombia, one that has flared at times into xenophobia and put the spotlight on the cross-border trade of household goods by criminal mafias.

The conflict has played out most acutely in the border state of Tachira, where ties with Colombia have historically been stronger than with Caracas, as 海角大神听reported in 2014.

"Price controls on goods such as cooking oil, milk, and toilet paper, coupled with a weak currency, have increased the flow of goods across the border," Sibylla Brodzinsky wrote for the Monitor:

Since an August 2015 attack that wounded three Venezuelan soldiers 鈥撎齛n attack that Maduro blamed on right-wing paramilitary groups 鈥撎齮he border with Colombia periodically been mostly closed, with restrictions lifted to allow locals to stock up on basic supplies, as Al Jazeera noted in September.

In announcing the currency swap this week, Maduro also extended the closure of the Colombian and Brazilian borders for another 72 hours to keep hoarded cash from re-entering the country.

"I have given the order ... to close immediately, all the terrestrial and aerial maritime possibilities so that they do not return all those notes that were taken from Venezuela," Maduro said, according to UPI.

And he听announced the discovery of a warehouse near听the Colombian border that was being used by an unidentified NGO to store contraband bills, according to Univision.

"There exists a permanent center of attack to our currency and exchange system with the extraction of notes," he said.

The change has so far proven chaotic for many Venezuelans, who lined up at banks to deposit bills that would soon become worthless but were unable to take out new bills that haven鈥檛 yet been received by many banks.

"Many countries in the world have changed their currencies but afforded enough time to exchange the old notes with new ones," said a Caracas man identified as Carlos by the Guardian, in an interview with the site. "Think of Europe and the euro. And when [late ex-president Hugo] Ch谩vez changed the Venezuelan bolivar to Strong bolivars both currencies could be used for several years."