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President Iván Duque affirmed this Thursday that the four Venezuelan citizens captured in Colombian territory, for allegedly forming groups of the neighboring country’s military, were apparently being financed by the president of the Caracas regime, Nicolás Maduro.
In this regard, the Director of the Police, General Óscar Atehortúa, reported this Thursday that the four detainees in the last hours in Bogotá and Barranquilla “for a year were forming deserter military groups in Colombia to carry out destabilization activities to the different State agencies and they also sought to have contact with intelligence men and women and obtain confidential information that was sent to the neighboring country.
They are Yacsi Alexandra Álvarez, captured in Barranquilla, and Rayder Alexánder Russo and the brothers Juvenal and José Sequea Torres, apprehended in Bogotá.
“Four subjects who were linked to destabilization events in Colombian territory were captured in the last hours. (…) They were planning destabilizing actions in Colombia in order to delegitimize the institutions of the Colombian State, ”the senior official reported after a security meeting held in Tibú, Norte de Santander, headed by the head of state.
It also indicated that the operation lasted five months and that the detainees “are linked to the trafficking of arms and garments for restricted use by the public force in Colombia. This is due to the evidence of the weapons that was seized on March 23 on the road that leads from Barranquilla to Santa Marta, where 26 rifles, binoculars, communication radios, night sights, rifle sights, sights were found. laser and silencers ”.
A woman detained in Barranquilla
Based on this fact, added the police director, this operation was carried out in Bogotá with three arrests and in Barranquilla with the capture of the woman.
“This Venezuelan citizen, Yacsi Álvarez, who was the subject of rigorous investigation, was in charge of the logistics of the organization and of generating international contacts with the objective of buying weapons, and also carrying out failed operations against the Colombian state,” he said.
Álvarez, he added, was also an interpreter for Clíver Alcalá and the American Jordan Goudreau, for the coordination of the purchase of weapons and the training of Venezuelan soldiers in the national territory.
Alcalá is a retired Venezuelan military man, immersed in a plan in 2019 to overthrow the Caracas dictatorship and who currently remains in extradition in the United States. And of the Americans participating in the plot, Airan Seth Berry and Luke Denman have been captured, and Goudreau is a fugitive.
Before surrendering himself to the US authorities, the military said that the head of Parliament and whom almost 60 countries recognize as interim president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, orchestrated the plan together with US advisers and signed “a contract” for the purchase of the weapons.
The general concluded that these people “were feeding off illicit businesses and activities from abroad. The steps are being taken to notify Alcalá and Goudreau so that they appear before the Colombian authorities and respond for the crimes in our territory.
The operative
The joint mechanisms were developed between the Prosecutor’s Office, Police, Army and Migration, and had the support of the FBI, releasing the arrests in Bogotá and Barranquilla of these individuals alleged to be part of Operation Gideon against the Maduro regime.
The detainees are also investigated by Washington for crimes related to arms trafficking.
Among them, Russo is considered the supposed mastermind of the drone attack against Maduro in August 2018.
Operation Gideon was an attempt by armed Venezuelan dissident groups and a private security force based in the United States to infiltrate Venezuela, in the coastal state of La Guaira, from Colombia, in the early morning of May 3, 2020.
The objective was to enter through the coasts of Macuto and through the Chuao parish, Santiago Mariño municipality, in the state of Aragua, to overthrow the Maduro government.
In this operation, trucks adapted to put machine guns, 4 rifles, 21 pistols, 3 AFAG machine guns, 10 rifles, 1 shotgun and “numerous ammunition” were seized.
He indicated that to date 31 people identified as being part of the “failed” operation have been arrested, that raids have been made in several Venezuelan states and that 22 more arrests have been ordered, and the balance was six Venezuelan dissident dead.
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