Caracas - The Venezuelan government continues operations today in Miranda state and in this capital, to confront the illegal sale of essential goods, a phenomenon known here by the name of ''bachaqueo'' (Illegal trade).

"The Criminal Economy Board started working today and we will work hard so as to make sure that the food reaches the people and not to leave it in the hands of speculators," assured the Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez.

"The goal is not to suppress or retaliate, but to discover, prevent, neutralize and investigate actions to boycott the sales process and legal distribution of these goods," he added.

Through his Twitter account, the minister stated that the directorate - made up of civic-police forces - has already achieved concrete results.

They have managed to capture three suspects who commit crimes in the center of Caracas, one of them was a teenager who threatened supermarket customers with a false gun in the parish of Santa Rosalia, he explained.

He also reported the arrest of two other citizens, one with more than 50 thousand bolivars of cash swindled from a store, and another while selling food up to a thousand percent overpriced.

Crimes like these are committed by groups who buy the products where they are being sold at affordable prices to the people, but also mafia groups organize ghosts cooperatives, supplied by large intermediaries that are related to production companies.

It is estimated that about 20 percent of production in Venezuela is lost because of these speculation practices, aimed at causing economic instability and in which the opposition to the government of Nicolas Maduro has found a breeding ground for their counterrevolutionary campaigns.

While the president repeatedly confirms the will to fight against the smuggling of food, opposition leaders make neoliberal proposals as alleged solutions to the problem and try to discredit the socialist policies of the Bolivarian Revolution.