Spies To Skies: Inside The US Operation To Capture Venezuela’s Maduro

Last Updated:January 04, 2026, 20:24 IST

Operation Absolute Resolve: From CIA team in Venezuela to replica of Maduro's fortress, drone strikes & even blowtorches to cut through metal doors, US's planning began in August

US President Donald Trump (right) watches the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. (X/Truth Social)

US President Donald Trump, after a shopping excursion for marble and onyx and a dinner on the Mar-a-Lago in Florida, on Saturday uttered, “Good luck and Godspeed." These four seemingly innocuous words marked the beginning of an unprecedented, dramatic and controversial military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ – a mission by air, land and sea in Venezuela’s capital Caracas that lasted for 2 hours and 20 minutes — marked the climax of months of strikes on suspected drug traffickers and covert intelligence activities.

The green light, Caracas fortress and blowtorch

Trump had greenlit the operation in the days before Christmas, with the final nod at 22:46 EST on Friday (03:46 GMT on Saturday). Within minutes, US military aircraft began taking off from 20 bases and were heading towards Caracas.

The aircraft delivered precision strikes on Venezuelan ground targets, such as air defense systems, and provided cover for the helicopters carrying the extraction team to Caracas. The US also deployed cyberwarfare tactics to help clear a path for its teams operating in the sky and on the ground. The team even carried a blowtorch to cut through the metal doors of Maduro’s safe house.

The troops arrived at Maduro’s location shortly after the strikes began at 02:01 local time, according to General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump watched on screen as the highly trained American Delta Force soldiers rushed into Maduro’s home, where the Venezuelan leader was sleeping alongside his wife.

Trump said the Venezuelan president attempted to flee to a safe room. “He was trying to get to a safe place, which wasn’t safe, because we would have had the door blown up in about 47 seconds," Trump said. “He made it to the door. He was unable to close it. He got bum rushed so fast that he didn’t get into that [room]."

Trump described the safe house as a military “fortress" in the heart of Caracas, saying: “They were in a ready position waiting for us. They knew we were coming." The troops took fire when they arrived, and one of the US helicopters was hit but was still able to fly. “We were going to do this four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, and then all of a sudden it opened up. And we said: go," Trump told Fox & Friends on Saturday, hours after the overnight raid.

A couple of hours later, Maduro was in US custody, handcuffed, dressed in gray sweatpants and wearing blackout goggles, according to a picture Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday morning.

Caine said Maduro and his wife “gave up" to the US military personnel before being flown out of the country. Maduro and Flores were placed aboard the USS Iwo Jima, which stopped at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

CIA installed team in Venezuela in August, got a replica of safe house

Preparations for the raid began in mid-December, people familiar with the plans told CNN. Caine said on Saturday that ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ was the culmination of “months" of planning and rehearsals involving 150 aircraft and personnel across military and intelligence agencies. The troops tapped to participate then had to wait for the ideal conditions, Caine said, and were on standby through the holidays as weather delayed the operation. “Last night, the weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could manoeuvre through," Caine said.

Even before the first US military strike on an alleged drug-carrying boat from Venezuela in early September, the plan to remove Maduro from power was already in motion.

August: the CIA covertly installed a small team inside Venezuela to track Maduro’s patterns, locations and movements, which helped bolster Saturday’s operation as to his exact whereabouts, including where he would be sleeping, sources familiar with the plans told CNN. The team found out “how he moved, where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate, what he wore, what were his pets," Gen Caine, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, said on Saturday. The assets included a CIA source operating within the Venezuelan government who assisted the United States with tracking Maduro’s location and movements ahead of his capture, one source briefed on the operation told CNN.

October: Trump said he authorised the CIA to operate inside Venezuela to clamp down on illegal flows of migrants and drugs from the South American nation.

Early December: A planned mission dubbed ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ was finalised. It was the result of months of meticulous planning and rehearsals, which even included elite US troops creating an exact full-size replica of Maduro’s Caracas safe house to practise their entry routes.

The plan, which amounted to an extraordinary US military intervention in Latin America not seen since the Cold War, was closely guarded. “As the operation unfolded at the compound, our air and ground intelligence teams provided real-time updates to the ground force, ensuring those forces could safely navigate the complex environment without unnecessary risk," Caine said.

Test drone strike last month

Late last month, the CIA carried out a drone strike on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter previously told CNN, marking the first known US attack inside that country. The strike targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for shipping, the sources said. No one was present at the facility at the time it was struck, so there were no casualties, according to the sources.

Despite the plans being drafted to oust Maduro, many White House officials had continued to hold out hope in recent weeks that the Venezuelan president would voluntarily step down, two senior White House officials told CNN. During a phone call between Trump and Maduro in November, the American president repeatedly stressed to the Venezuelan leader that “it would be in his best interest" to step down and leave the country, one official said, calling the conversation “pretty much an ultimatum." As recently as the beginning of December, the administration believed it was beginning to see cracks in Maduro’s support system, one of the officials told CNN. As time went by, however, that belief began to dissipate, and planning for the operation began.

Spots targeted

BBC Verify examined a number of videos showing explosions, fire and smoke in locations around Caracas to identify exactly which sites were targeted. So far, it has confirmed five locations including Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, an airfield known as La Carlota and Port La Guaira, Caracas’ main conduit to the Caribbean Sea. Map showing locations of US air strikes in and around Caracas, Venezuela. Highlighted sites include Port La Guaira to the north, Fuerte Tiuna and La Carlota in Caracas, and Higuerote Airport to the east.

Some of the US strikes targeted air defence systems and other military targets, officials said. Trump also suggested the US cut the power in Caracas before the mission began, though he did not specify how.

The US struck several locations around Caracas, including Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex.

When asked if the US could have killed Maduro, an authoritarian leader who took over the presidency in 2013, if he had resisted arrest, Trump said: “It could have happened."

On the US side, “a couple of guys were hit", he said, but no US service members were killed. The Venezuelan authorities have not confirmed any casualties.

Almost exactly an hour later Trump announced the news of his capture to the world. “Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice," he said.

With detailed inputs from CNN, BBC

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