VENEZUELANS 'LOOT TO EAT' VENTURES '

PUERTO CABELLO :

*VENEZUELA holds the world's largest oil reserves and was once among Latin America's  wealthiest  nations*...............

The cab of  Carlos Del  Pinto's big rig gave him a nerve rattling front-row seat to surge in a mob attacks on Venezuela's-

Neighborhood markets, cattle ranches and  food delivery trucks like this.

Shortly after pulling away from the docks at Puerto Cabello the country's biggest port, he witnessed  20 people swarm a truck ahead of him in a frenzy-

 Fill up their sacks with the corn it was carrying to a food-processing plant. The driver was held at  gunpoint.

''It fills you with terror,'' Del Pinto said. He has hauled cargo for  14 years, and on a good month earns the equivalent of a $100, enough to support his wife and two daughters.

Yet, despite his fears, he sympathizes with his impoverished countrymen, who are becoming a desperate amid Venezuela's widespread food shortages and  sky-high inflation.

''They have to loot to eat,'' he said.

Sporadic looting, and food riots and protests driven by the hungry, poor have surged in Venezuela , a country that's no stranger to unrest.

But the uprisings have a different face than the mostly middle-class protesters  who took streets for months last year in political demonstrations trying to oust  President Nicolas Maduro.

''These protests are coming from people of the lower classes who simply cannot get enough to eat,'' said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office  on Latin America, who spent decades researching Venezuela.

''They want relief, not necessarily to force Maduro from power.''

Venezuela holds the  world's largest oil reserves and was among  Latin America's wealthiest nations.

But after nearly two decades of  socialist rule  and mismanagement of  the state-run  oil company, it is being battered by the worst economic crisis in its history.