VENEZUELA: Last Laugh

It was Dec. 28, the Day of the Innocents* and the Latin American equivalent of April Fool's Day. At the San Tome camp of the Mene Grande Oil Co., the plane had just landed from Caracas. Its most important cargo: $287,000 in crisp bills to pay drillers and riggers. It brought also a surprise. When company paymasters opened the moneybag, they found only bricks and old newspapers. A Day of the Innocents' joke, was their first thought. But it was no joke; somewhere between Caracas and San Tome the payroll pouch had been stolen.

Last week, Venezuelans got the sequel to the best robber mystery they had known in many a day. In Barranquilla in neighboring Colombia, police began to watch one Julio Casa Rivas. Reason: he was buying flashy cars and diamonds, and otherwise tossing around Venezuelan bolivars. Rivas was arrested, told all: with a cashier accomplice he had switched moneybags just before the San Tome-bound plane took off from Caracus.