Venezuela: 2 US ‘mercenaries’ among those nabbed after raid
Trump denies ties to Venezuelan attack with 2 US men jailed
(about 16 hours later)
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said authorities arrested two U.S. citizens among a group of “mercenaries” on Monday, a day after a beach raid purportedly aimed at capturing the socialist leader that authorities say they foiled.
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States had nothing to do with an alleged incursion into Venezuela that landed two U.S. citizens behind bars in the crisis-stricken South American nation.
Maduro held up a pair of blue U.S. passports, reading off the names and birth dates on them in a nationwide broadcast on state television. He showed images of the fishing boats the alleged attackers rode in on and equipment like walkie-talkies and night-vision glasses collected in what Maduro called an “intense” couple of days. He blamed the attacks on the Trump administration and neighboring Colombia, both of which have denied involvement.
Trump said he had just learned of the detention of the pair, accused by Venezuela of being mercenaries. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said they were part of an operation to kill him that was backed by neighboring Colombia and the United States.
“The United States government is fully and completely involved in this defeated raid,” Maduro said, praising members of a fishing village for cornering one group in the sweep netting the “professional American mercenaries.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll let you know,” Trump told reporters in Washington before departing from the White House to Arizona. “But it has nothing to do with our government.”
Before dawn on Sunday, officials say the first attack started on a beach near Venezuela’s port city of La Guaira, when security forces made the first two arrests and killed eight others attempting to make a landing by speedboats.
Authorities in Venezuela identified the two men as Luke Denman and Airan Berry, both former U.S. special forces soldiers associated with the Florida-based private security firm Silvercorp USA.
The two U.S. citizens arrested Monday were identified as as Luke Denman and Airan Berry, both former U.S. special forces soldiers.
A third U.S. ex-Green Beret and Silvercorp founder, Jordan Goudreau, claimed responsibility for leading “Operation Gideon,” which was launched with an attempted beach landing before dawn on Sunday. Officials said Tuesday that six suspected attackers were killed, giving a revised figure from the eight previously reported.
Florida-based ex-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau said earlier Monday that he was working with the two men in a mission intending to detain Maduro and “liberate” Venezuela. Goudreau has claimed responsibility for the operation.
The two ex-U.S. soldiers were detained Monday dozens of miles (kilometers) from the first attempted beach landing in the fishing village of Chuao. Authorities say they’ve confiscated equipment.
The two served in Iraq and Afghanistan with him in the U.S. military, Goudreau said, adding that they were part of this alleged mission in Venezuela called “Operation Gideon.” The aim was to capture Maduro.
Goudreau said the operation was designed to capture — and not kill Maduro. He said he carried it out on a “shoestring budget” after signing an agreement with U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who Goudreau accuses of failing to pay him.
Venezuela has been in a deepening political and economic crisis under Maduro’s rule. Crumbling public services such as running water, electricity and medical care have driven nearly 5 million to migrate. But Maduro still controls all levers of power despite a U.S.-led campaign to oust him. It recently indicted Maduro as a drug trafficker and offered a $15 million reward for his arrest.
Goudreau did not respond on Tuesday to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Venezuela and the United States broke diplomatic ties last year amid heightened tensions, so there is no U.S. embassy in Caracas. Officials from the U.S. State Department did not respond Monday to a request by The Associated Press for comment.
On Tuesday, Guaidó again said he had nothing to do with Goudreau, and that he had no relationship with Silvercorp, “for obvious and evident reasons, but we have to make that clear.”
“I’ve tried to engage everybody I know at every level,” Goudreau said of the attempt to help his detained colleagues. “Nobody’s returning my calls. It’s a nightmare.”
Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez presented more details of the plot that he said resembled a “Hollywood script” fueled by the “white supremacist” ideas of its alleged American organizers.
Goudreau’s account of the confusing raid has at times seemed contradictory — for example, he says he was plotting a rebellion for months while claiming not to have received a single penny. Meanwhile, a self-aggrandizing Maduro has thrived broadcasting videos on state TV of what he says was a flawless defense of the nation’s sovereignty.
“They thought that because we’re black, because we’re Indians, that they were going to easily control us,” said Rodriguez, showing images of what he said were boats and training camps inside Colombia from where the insurrection was organized.
Kay Denman, the mother of one of the Americans, said the last time she heard from her son was a few weeks when he texted her from an undisclosed location to ask how she was coping with the coronavirus pandemic. She said she never heard her son discuss Venezuela and only learned of his possible capture there after his friends called when they saw the reports on social media.
He presented video testimony from a Venezuelan military deserter, Capt. Victor Pimenta, one of 13 captured participants.
“The first time I heard Jordan Goudreau’s name was today,” she said when reached at her home in Austin, Texas.
Pimenta said that a group of nearly 60 combatants left Colombia at sundown on Friday May 1 in two boats aiming to reach La Guaira along the coast near Venezuela’s capital of Caracas.
Goudreau has said he reached an agreement with the U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to overthrow Maduro, which Guaidó has denied. The opposition leader said he had nothing to do with Sunday’s raid.
The second vessel carrying the commander of the operation, Capt. Antonio Sequea, and the two Americans experienced motor problems and had to abort the mission, he said.
Goudreau says Guaidó never fulfilled the agreement, but the former Green Beret pushed ahead with an underfunded operation with just 60 fighters, including the two U.S. veterans.
Initially the stranded group tried to reach the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire, Pimenta said, but as the vessel was running out of fuel it dropped off a group of combatants along the Caribbean coastline. Commandos from Venezuela’s armed forces caught up with them.
He said he last communicated with Denman and Berry when they were adrift in a boat “hugging” the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. They were still in their boat following an initial confrontation with the Venezuelan Navy early Sunday, he said.
Rodriguez also presented video testimony of another individual, Jose Socorro, who claimed that he had been working with Sequea to collect and stash weapons for the combatants at a safe house in La Guaira.
“They were running dangerously low on fuel,” Goudreau said. “If they had gone onto landfall, they would have gone to a safe house.”
Venezuela is gripped by a deepening social and economic crisis under Maduro’s rule that has led nearly 5 million residents to flee crumbling social services, such as unreliable water, electricity and broken hospitals.
Goudreau said the two were waiting for a boat on the Caribbean island of Aruba with emergency fuel to help extract them.
The U.S. is among nearly 60 nations that back Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, saying Maduro clings to power despite a sham election in 2018 that banned the most popular opposition candidates from running.
Venezuelan state TV showed showed images on state TV of several unidentified men handcuffed and lying prone in a street. One video clip showed authorities handling a shirtless man in handcuffs.
Venezuela and the U.S. broke diplomatic last year, so there is no U.S. embassy operating in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas that can offer the two detained men assistance.
He was identified as a National Guardsman Capt. Antonio Sequea, who participated in a barracks revolt against Maduro a year ago. Goudreau said Sequea was a commander working with him in recent days on the ground in Venezuela.
“It shocks me how insane they were,” said Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. “They walked right into a coiled rattlesnake without even having minimally studied the capacity of the Venezuelan armed forces. There’s no way the U.S. government would’ve supported an operation like this.”
Maduro ally and Attorney General Tarek William Saab said that in total they’ve arrested 114 people suspected in the attempted attack and they are on the hunt of 92 others.
Goudreau, a three-time Bronze Star U.S. combat veteran, claims to have helped organize the deadly seaborne raid from Colombia. Goudreau said the operation had received no aid from Guaidó or the U.S. or Colombian governments.
Opposition politicians and U.S. authorities issued statements suggesting Maduro’s allies had fabricated the assault to draw attention away from the country’s problems.
Goudreau said by telephone earlier Monday that 52 other fighters had infiltrated Venezuelan territory and were in the first stage of a mission to recruit members of the security forces to join their cause.
An AP investigation published Friday found that Goudreau had been working with a retired Venezuelan army general — who now faces U.S. narcotics charges — to train dozens of deserters from Venezuela’s security forces at secret camps inside neighboring Colombia. The goal was to mount a cross-border raid that would end in Maduro’s arrest.
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Investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
Goodman reported from Miami, Florida.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
