Alva Review-Courier -

MIAMI (AP) — Back in January, a yearlong campaign of U.S. sanctions was taking its toll at Venezuela's state-run oil company. Many of PDVSA's overseas bank accounts had been frozen, hampering its ability to pay vendors on whom it relies to keep the nation's crude flowing.

So the company leaned on a longtime client from Thailand, Tipco Asphalt, to blunt the impact: in exchange for discounts on oil, Tipco would pay PDVSA's bills and deduct the amounts from what it owed the Venezuelan oil giant, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

PDVSA quickly took advantage of the arrangement...