Welcome to the first Uncovered of 2026. I hope you had a great break – although I wonder if for some of you it came to the same initially baffling end as mine did, with Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Luckily one Venezuelan man explained it plainly in a viral video when he said of US, Russian and Chinese interest in his country: “What do you think they want, our recipe for arepa?”

The answer to his rhetorical question is: No, oil.

There wasn’t really any pretence about it. What was staggering was how quickly big business interests laid claim to some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Chevron’s former Latin America head told the Financial Times that he had anticipated a big breakthrough like this for a while; that his investment fund was ready to spend big on Venezuelan oil projects; and that anyone who wanted to be a part of that could contribute to his $2bn fundraiser. A real bonanza.

TBIJ’s Rob Soutar knows Latin America well and has been following the fossil fuel industry for years. His analysis of the abduction makes clear just what’s at stake: “This was Trump’s new national security strategy in action: aggressively anti-drugs and just as aggressively pro-fossil fuels. Trump’s sudden willingness to pursue these ends using military aggression could mark the start of a worrying new era for security, sovereignty and the climate.”

The former BP boss Lord Browne added that UK oil executives will be lobbying our government to let them get involved in the frenzy. According to the Daily Telegraph, Shell is already looking at returning to the region via gas fields near the sea border with Trinidad and Tobago.

Trump’s Venezuela play also highlights how much he’s willing to use state power to further American business interests, including his own.

On Christmas Eve, Trump imposed sanctions on five public figures from Europe in connection with their work trying to regulate online hate and disinformation. One of them is Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner who had been responsible for regulating social media – work that led to Elon Musk calling him a "tyrant of Europe". Trump was all too happy to use high office to attack those trying to regulate US businesses.

He’s cutting away anything restraining him bit by bit. On Wednesday, with the world still squarely fixated on the Venezuela crisis, Trump ordered the US to withdraw from 66 international organisations, almost half of which are UN-related.

This is particularly worrying when it comes to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the linchpin for global efforts to combat global warming, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the key authority on climate science.

Now this week we have the spectacle of Maduro being trotted out in front of the New York media and charged with elaborate cocaine trafficking crimes. Rob does a great job tying together geopolitics, oil stocks and why buying a solar panel might be the best answer to what’s going on.

What does Britain owe its overseas territories?

In a strange coincidence, our last big story of 2025 was about a different political leader now languishing in a US jail on cocaine trafficking charges. The former prime minister of the British Virgin Islands is now spending time behind bars in Georgia after being caught in a devilish sting operation.

The case isn’t simply a gripping yarn on an island far far away. The bigger picture brings the story right to our door, as Ed explains in his latest follow-up.

Britain’s three crown dependencies and 14 overseas territories – of which the BVI is one – are central to the financial system that allows dictators, war criminals and fraudsters to keep going. The secrecy these jurisdictions provide – particularly around things like who actually owns a company registered there – often makes it impossible to trace who is stealing what money from whom and where. Britain sits at the centre of this web, not least because of its colonial legacy.

And so it’s the UK’s job to help bring about a more transparent system, where we can track where dirty money is travelling. I think the UK is sincere about wanting to achieve this. But London is awash with dirty money itself and the government is seemingly incapable of navigating the complex relationship it has with the crown dependencies and overseas territories.

People in those territories have certainly noticed the conflict of interests, Ed writes: “Some cried hypocrisy, noting whole swathes of London remain owned by oligarchs and autocrats’ princelings. Others attacked the arrogance of British overreach in requiring changes in islands that are largely self-governing, without offering a penny to implement them.”

These knotty issues run to the core of Britain’s problematic position in the world. There’s a summit this summer where the government hopes to address some of them – we’ll certainly be paying attention, and keeping you across the details. Watch this space.

If we want the government to get serious about transparency, then it’s our job to make sure they do. The Bureau’s work cannot happen without the support of our generous members, the Bureau Insiders. If you’d like to be a part of it, then please sign up today:

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