How can the Bank of England block Venezuela from withdrawing it's own gold?

Factual Questions
1

Hopefully this doesn’t stray into GD territory, but it seems a straightforward enough question so I’ll ask it here. Recently, the Bank of England (and the US’s urging) blocked the Maduro government from withdrawing $1.2 billion in gold assets. I get that they and the US want to recognize Juan Guaido as the president or force Venezuela to run a new election, but I can’t see how the Bank of England can prevent them from withdrawing their own money and keep it’s credibility. Does this mean that any government could, potentially, not be able to withdraw it’s own assets if it runs afoul of the US/UK government? Or am I missing something here? Is there another reason they are or can block the withdrawal?

2

UK no longer recognizes Maduro as being part of the government of Venezuela. He’s just some guy, not the head of state anymore. That’s Venezuela’s gold. Maduro has no say in what gets done with it according to the UK’s government. It’s not really any more complicated than that.

3

That is indeed how the world works.

4

I will tack on that having a security council veto prevents any binding UN resolution demanding they release the gold/recognize Maduro.

5

It can’t get indignant on Brits’ behalf about the emphasis on ‘at US urging’, but who says it’s anything other than completely independent action of the UK? The who thing about declaring Maduro not the legitimate president (and hard to see on the merit how he is any longer) is not particularly orchestrated by the US and is loads of countries not just US and UK, and opposed by a largely odious list of regimes.

And it would probably be some of the same people sniping about the UK providing haven for dirty money from eg. Russian gangster/oligarchs now that it’s more fashionable to call out Russia since the US 2016 election. A criticism of the Brits not without any foundation IMO.

I wonder what’s the ruling principle of cynical comments about this, that a non US puppet UK would have the BoE turn over the gold to anyone holding the levers of power in Venezuela by force no matter what?