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Two Americans were captured on Monday in Venezuela for an alleged failed “invasion” by sea that has left 15 detainees, said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in which case the Prosecutor’s Office accused opposition leader Juan Guaidó of hiring “mercenaries.”
In a military and police deployment along the Venezuelan coasts “two American security members” of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, were arrested Maduro assured the high command of the Armed Forces in a televised address.
They are Luke Denman, 34, and Airan Berry, 41, according to the Chavista leader, who showed his passports and other documents on state television VTV.
It has not been confirmed that, as Maduro denounces, they belong to the Trump security team.
.@NicolasMaduro: Among the terrorist captured today they were 2 U.S. military officials from Texas. According to a member of the band they are “intermediaries with Trump’s head of security”. Their names are Luke Denman and Aaron Barry, members of the company Silver Corp. pic.twitter.com/dsTp0oaOIq
– teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) May 5, 2020
After two arrests on Sunday, 13 people were detained on Monday, the Venezuelan president said.
Earlier, the Prosecutor’s Office accused Guaidó of hiring “mercenaries” with Venezuelan funds blocked by Washington sanctions, in order to launch the “invasion” attempt.
“Mercenaries for hire” signed “contracts” for 212 million dollars with money “looted and stolen from (the Venezuelan state oil company) PDVSA” and “accounts that have blocked the country abroad,” the attorney general told reporters. , Tarek William Saab.
The official linked Guaidó with a former US military man who he identified as Jordan Goudreau.
“There we see the signatures (…) of the citizen Juan Guaidó” and “of Jordan Goudreau himself,” said Saab, from the official line, referring to an image of the alleged contract, disclosed by a Venezuelan journalist living in Miami, Patricia Poleo.
Saab also released a video of Goudreau, founder of a private security and defense company called Silvercorp USA, in which the former military officer assures that an operation against Maduro was underway.
Denman and Barry were linked to that company by Maduro, who held Trump and Colombian President Iván Duque responsible for the plan.
Rebel military arrested
On Sunday, the government denounced an attempt to “invade” “mercenaries” who left Colombia and tried to enter the coasts of Macuto, La Guaira state (to the north), about 40 minutes by land from Caracas, with a balance of eight “terrorists” killed and two arrested, According to number two of Chavismo, Diosdado Cabello.
Cabello himself reported that this Monday there were new captures in another coastal town, Chuao (Aragua, north).
One of them, according to the official version, is the dissident captain Antonio Sequea, who was among the thirty military members who rebelled against Maduro on April 30, 2019 with the support of Guaidó and his political mentor, Leopoldo López, who that day escaped from his house arrest.
Another is Josnars Adolfo Baduel, son of General Raúl Baduel, old ally of the late former President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), who has been incarcerated since 2017 and who had been in prison between 2009 and 2015.
Saab said stolen weapons were seized from the opposition-majority Parliament headquarters during the failed April 2019 insurrection.
The Prosecutor’s Office has opened several investigations against Guaidó, parliamentary head recognized by fifty countries as president in charge of Venezuela, but has not issued an arrest warrant.
“Justice will come sooner rather than later,” said Saab.
In a statement from his press team, Guaidó denied the accusations on Monday, rejecting any “relationship” with private security companies.
Saab said there are 114 detainees and 92 people to capture on charges of plans against Maduro and the Chavista government from an attack with drones loaded with explosives during a military act in 2018.
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