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How Paul Singer Stole Venezuela’s Crown Jewel

About a month ago, on November 25, 2025, a US judge approved the sale of Citgo Petroleum Corporation (CITGO), a subsidiary of Venezuela’s a state-owned oil company, to Amber Energy, a subsidiary of Paul Singer’s Elliott Management.

Venezuela rejected the legitimacy of the sale, with the Maduro administration calling it “fraudulent process,” a “barbaric theft, ”and “the theft of the century.”

The sale price for CITGO was $5.9 billion, with the proceeds flowing to creditors of the Venezuelan state. The acquisition is expected to be finalized sometime next year, pending regulatory approval... Maduro was the obstacle blocking that approval, but now he’s gone.

On a fundamentals basis, CITGO is worth far more than what Singer paid for it. Valuations during the auction ranged from $10 billion to $20 billion, depending on methodology and assumptions. Evercore, the investment bank advising the court-supervised sale, placed CITGO’s value at roughly $13 billion, while the Venezuelan government has argued the company is worth north of $20 billion.

The reason CITGO sold for a fraction of its real value is simple: U.S. sanctions and non-recognition of the Maduro government made Venezuela radioactive to investors. Most serious buyers would not touch the asset. Financing dried up. The auction never became competitive. What should have been a sale turned into a clearance event, with one vulture left standing.

What great luck for Paul Singer, then, that only one month after his purchase was approved, Trump invaded Venezuela and turned it into a puppet state, declaring that all the oil now belonged to American investors!

Singer himself has acted as a financial attack dog for Trump during his first year back in office. In June, he contributed $1 million to fund a super PAC aiming to oust Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who'd become Trump's leading Republican critic over his Department of Justice's refusal to release its files pertaining to the billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

This account from a Venezuelan security guard loyal to Nicolás Maduro is absolutely chilling—and it explains a lot about why the tone across Latin America suddenly changed.

Security Guard: On the day of the operation, we didn't hear anything coming. We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn't know how to react.

Interviewer: So what happened next? How was the main attack?

Security Guard: After those drones appeared, some helicopters arrived, but there were very few. I think barely eight helicopters. From those helicopters, soldiers came down, but a very small number. Maybe twenty men. But those men were technologically very advanced. They didn't look like anything we've fought against before.

Interviewer: And then the battle began?

Security Guard: Yes, but it was a massacre. We were hundreds, but we had no chance. They were shooting with such precision and speed... it seemed like each soldier was firing 300 rounds per minute. We couldn't do anything.

Interviewer: And your own weapons? Didn't they help?

Security Guard: No help at all. Because it wasn't just the weapons. At one point, they launched something—I don't know how to describe it... it was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.

Interviewer: And your comrades? Did they manage to resist?

Security Guard: No, not at all. Those twenty men, without a single casualty, killed hundreds of us. We had no way to compete with their technology, with their weapons. I swear, I've never seen anything like it. We couldn't even stand up after that sonic weapon or whatever it was.

Interviewer: So do you think the rest of the region should think twice before confronting the Americans?

Security Guard: Without a doubt. I'm sending a warning to anyone who thinks they can fight the United States. They have no idea what they're capable of. After what I saw, I never want to be on the other side of that again. They're not to be messed with.

Interviewer: And now that Trump has said Mexico is on the list, do you think the situation will change in Latin America?

Security Guard: Definitely. Everyone is already talking about this. No one wants to go through what we went through. Now everyone thinks twice. What happened here is going to change a lot of things, not just in Venezuela but throughout the region.

all our radar systems shut down without any explanation