Socialist dictator of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro claimed on Wednesday that one of the American citizens his regime took hostage recently on allegations of being a “mercenary” is a “senior FBI official” working to topple his regime.
Venezuelan forces recently arrested two yet-to-be publicly identified American nationals, described by the dictator on Tuesday as “important American mercenaries,” alongside two Colombians and three Ukrainian men. The group of seven foreigners stands accused by of allegedly being part of a “mercenary group” seeking to “generate violence” in the country ahead of Friday, January 10, the date Maduro is slated to be inaugurated for a third illegitimately obtained six-year presidential term.
On Wednesday evening, Maduro, during an official event with members of the regime-controlled National Assembly, claimed that one of the two detained Americans is a “senior FBI official,” while the other one is a “high-ranking military official.”
Maduro further claimed that the purported “mercenary group” the two Americans and five other foreigners belong to is “financed” by the outgoing administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, tasked with stopping his impending inauguration.
“This is a coup d’état announced. You know that 125 foreign mercenaries of 25 nationalities have been captured,” Maduro said. “Yesterday, three Ukrainian mercenaries were captured; they come from the war. Two Americans were captured. One a senior FBI official and the other a senior military official.”
“Two Colombian hitmen were captured in two different places and they confessed to what they came for. And in the course of yesterday, in the early hours of this morning, the captures have continued because one chain leads to another,” he continued. “One piece of information leads to another. There is good information to dismantle what we are dismantling, a foreign mercenary aggression financed by the outgoing government of the United States.”
According to Maduro and other members of his authoritarian socialist regime, local security forces have detained 125 foreign “mercenaries” seeking to carry out “terrorist and destabilizing acts” in Venezuela following the aftermath of the sham July 28, 2024, election. The “mercenaries,” according to the Venezuelan regime, are nationals from the United States, Peru, Spain, Italy, Israel, and Argentina, among other countries.
Maduro insists he was the “winner” of the fraudulent election, while the Venezuelan opposition has presented voter tallies obtained on the day of the election indicating its candidate, exiled 75-year-old former diplomat Edmundo González, defeated Maduro in a landslide.
Both Maduro and González have stated that they will be inaugurated in Caracas as president of Venezuela on January 10. González, who fled to Spain in September, is presently conducting a whirlwind tour in the region that saw him visit Argentina, the United States, Panama, and other countries. The Maduro regime has stated that González will be arrested if he enters Venezuela again and imposed a $100,000 bounty on him at the start of January.
Shortly after Maduro’s event with the National Assembly representatives, Diosdado Cabello, the regime’s interior minister and long-suspected drug lord, claimed in the latest episode of his TV show Con el Mazo Dando (“Hitting with the Mallet”) that both the alleged detained senior FBI official and other detainees had “part of their plans” stored on their respective phone devices.
“Yesterday a heavyweight of the FBI in Venezuela fell, an extra heavyweight of the FBI, plus another gringo of the FBI, 20 years working in the FBI; they were sent on a mission to Venezuela, and two Colombian mercenaries working for contractors who came from Ukraine,” Cabello said.
Cabello, referring to himself in the third person as Ojitos Lindos (“Pretty Eyes,” a nickname used to describe him in the past) claimed that opposition leader María Corina Machado allegedly wants to “generate the death of innocent people” by requesting international intervention and for the Venezuelan military to oust the socialist regime.
A U.S. Department of State spokesperson denied the accusations espoused by the Maduro regime in remarks given to CNN en Español on Wednesday and stressed the State Department’s concerns about the report of detained American nationals in Venezuela.
“Any claims of U.S. involvement in a plot to overthrow Maduro are categorically false. The United States continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela,” the spokesperson said.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here
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