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Dec. 5 (UPI) — The new president of the Central Bank of Bolivia, David Espinoza, said six tons of the country’s international gold reserves are used as collateral for debt in six foreign banks.

Espinoza said most of Bolivia’s gold is held in banks in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States rather than in domestic vaults.

Espinoza presented a detailed report Thursday on the state of the reserves in both foreign currency and gold. He warned that the fiscal policy applied during the administration of former President Luis Arce made heavy use of gold to finance liquidity.

He said the Central Bank bought gold on the domestic market and exported 56.3 tons in recent years to obtain foreign currency and meet immediate liquidity needs.

He said this fiscal policy left Bolivia “on the brink of a hyperinflationary spiral,” similar to the one seen in the 1980s, the local newspaper El Deber reported.

Bolivia appears to have a stable 23 tons of gold in reserves — the legal minimum is 22. Espinoza described the 6.6 tons that were “ignored or used” without regulatory clarity as “atypical operations,” Unitel reported.

“This is concerning. We are reviewing all operations to verify whether legal procedures were followed. It is part of the previous government’s legacy,” he said.

According to the information provided, Bolivia’s international reserves totaled $3.277 billion as of Tuesday. Espinoza said only about $75 million of that amount is liquid foreign currency, with most of the reserves held in gold.

He said “the total in foreign currency fell from $709 million in 2022 to just $166 million in 2023, and today we are near $50 million.”

He added that the situation is a direct result of the Arce administration’s economic policies, which “exhausted the foreign currency cushion” and left the country almost entirely dependent on gold.

Espinoza’s fiscal analysis was equally critical. He said Bolivia has recorded 11 consecutive years of fiscal deficit, a pattern he called “absolutely irresponsible.”

The figures released by the Central Bank of Bolivia on the state of the international reserves and the fiscal deficit are “alarming,” former president of the Tarija College of Economists Fernando Romero told the digital outlet La Brújula.

For Romero, the most serious issue is the fiscal deficit.

He said the official figures released by the outgoing government do not match those reported by Espinoza. While June reports pointed to a deficit of about $2.6 billion, the Central Bank said the real figure had exceeded $6.45 billion at that time.

By the end of the Arce administration in October, the fiscal deficit had reached about $7.22 billion, according to the information provided by Espinoza.

Dec. 6 (UPI) — The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Munro seized more than 10 tons of cocaine from a drug-running vessel south of Mexico in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday.

The seizure from an open-bowed vessel that was equipped with three large outboard motors is the largest drug interdiction done at sea in nearly two decades, CBS News reported.

The interdiction began with a sniper in a helicopter targeting and disabling the drug boat’s motor, which enabled the Munro’s crew to board it and capture its crew and drug cargo.

The mission was carried out as part of the military’s Operation Pacific Viper campaign against drug running on the open sea.

As part of the operation, the Coast Guard “has accelerated counter-narcotics operations across the eastern Pacific and delivered historic results in the fight against narco-terrorists,” Coast Guard officials said Friday in a post on X.

“Our maritime fighting force is leading America’s drug interdiction operations, protecting the homeland and keeping deadly drugs out of American communities,” Coast Guard officials said. “This is where defense of America begins.”

The amount of cocaine seized is capable of causing 7.5 million overdose deaths.

The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard initiated Operation Pacific Viper in August as part of President Donald Trump‘s effort to better protect U.S. citizens against illicit drugs and the cartels that smuggle them into the United States.

The Coast Guard in October reported seizing 100,000 pounds of cocaine in the eastern Pacific during the opening months of Operation Pacific Viper.

In November, the Coast Guard said it had seized more than 500,000 pounds of cocaine during the 2025 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30.

The amount seized during the fiscal year is the most ever taken in a year by the Coast Guard and more than three times its average annual take of 167,000 pounds of the drug.