Venezuela removed eight tonnes of gold from the central bank's vaults last week, and the cash-strapped socialist state is expected to sell the bullion abroad as it seeks to raise hard currency in the face of U.S. sanctions, a lawmaker and one government source said. With sanctions imposed by Washington choking off revenues from exports by state oil company PDVSA, President Nicolas Maduro's increasingly isolated administration has turned to sales of Venezuela's substantial gold reserves as one of the only sources of foreign currency.