CIA spies in Venezuela used high tech drones and insider info to map Maduro’s compound and movements

A group of covert CIA operatives was operating inside Venezuela since last August, collecting intelligence that made this weekend’s capture of the country’s illegitimate leader, Nicolas Maduro, possible.

Early Saturday morning, special operators from the highly secretive Delta Force accompanied by members of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, stormed the hardened compound of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, taking him and his wife into custody and transporting him to the United States. There, they will face trial on narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and other charges.

In just under two hours, the United States military combined cyber, air, and surface attacks to lay waste to Russian-sourced air defense systems, neuter Venezuela’s ability to scramble fighters, and allow special operations MH-47s and MH-60s to enter the country’s capital chock-full of the scariest covert operators Uncle Sam has to offer.

And while this operation was a demonstration of incredible military prowess, it was made possible by a small group of CIA operatives who were smuggled into the country almost five months ago.

Covert espionage on foreign soil is often carried out by CIA officers attached to the U.S. State Department and working out of American embassies. This gives operatives secure working facilities and diplomatic cover from which they can develop assets. However, for the covert team in Caracas, that wasn’t an option, since the State Department had shuttered its facilities in Venezuela back in 2019, following Maduro’s first stolen election.

A photograph of an RQ-170 Sentinel at Andersen AFB in Guam on an unknown date. (The Drive via U.S. Air Force)

According to the New York Times, the CIA team had overhead support in the form of stealth ISR, or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, drones operating high in Venezuelan airspace. Based on images of a RQ-170 stealth drone seemingly returning to base after Saturday morning’s operation, it could be that RQ-170s were among the drones employed. The CIA team also reportedly had a source on the inside, which contributed in allowing them to map out Maduro and his security detachment’s daily routines, as he rotated between at least a half-dozen secure residences for security.

The intelligence they collected enabled the suppression of Venezuela’s air defenses when the mission began – and likely had a part in the cyber attack that blacked out portions of Caracas – and allowed the Joint Special Operations Command to build an exact replica of Maduro’s primary compound. The replica was built in Kentucky and was used for Delta Force to rehearse the extraction – and that paid evidently paid off.

According to reports, Maduro attempted to flee to a hardened safe room immediately upon Delta and HRT breaching the compound doors. It took less than three minutes for the American operators to take down the entire security detachment inside and reach Maduro just as he was attempting to seal the door to the safe room. It took less than five minutes to go from the moment of breach to the radio call saying they’d secured Maduro.

But the fighting still wasn’t over. According to U.S. officials, the American forces still had to fight their way out, and yet, remarkably, not a single American life was lost.

Feature Image: Sunset in Caracas, August 2024. (Photo by Periodismodepaz/Wikimedia Commons)

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