The complaint is launched against shadowy figures, allegedly Venezuelan exiles living in the US, and is adorned with screenshots, historical pictures and stock images of cash. It is known that Venezuela tightly controls the legal exchange of its currency, the bolivar. The country uses a byzantine 3-tier system aimed at subsidizing key imports with advantageous exchange rates. However, many people use the black market, where the value of the local currency is lower.
The website in question tracks currency trades along the Colombian border and has recently become a popular tool to check the value of the black market. DolarToday is usually banned in Venezuela, but many people can use the mobile app to look up the black market rate throughout the day. Aside from sending out alerts when the rate plummets to new lows, DolarToday also provides a steady stream of negative news out of Venezuela.
In the lawsuit, the government of Venezuela says that DolarToday is publishing fake rates, intentionally driving the value of the bolivar down. In the meantime, economists believe that the country is currently suffering from the world’s highest inflation. Indeed, the local currency has lost about 90% of its value on the black market during the past year.
