Operation Gideon

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Buried today in the inner pages of the Washington Post are the outlines of an assassination attempt in Venezuela. The country has a socialist administration headed by President Maduro.

President Nicolás Maduro said his government had captured two American “mercenaries” Monday in a murky operation allegedly intended to infiltrate Venezuela, incite rebellion and apprehend its leaders, adding a fresh complication to escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas. The socialist leader said the plan was to kill him.

In a lengthy speech Monday night, Maduro decried an ongoing “terrorist” assault on Venezuela that he said had led him to dispatch 25,000 reservists to the coasts. He displayed images that apparently depicted the two apprehended Americans in a lineup, one of them forced to lower his head by a captor.

U.S. officials and the mainstream Venezuelan opposition headed by Juan Guaidó have strongly denied any connection with the operation, which allegedly involved several dozen men, most of them defectors from the Venezuelan military who had been living hand-to-mouth in camps in Colombia. Former Venezuelan National Guard officer Javier Nieto Quintero and former U.S. Army Green Beret Jordan Goudreau, head of a Florida company that says it offers paid strategic security services, released a video Sunday announcing the start of “Operation Gideon” and calling on Venezuelan soldiers to join them.

Goudreau, in an interview with The Washington Post, confirmed that two Americans in what he says was a force of about 60 men were captured Monday along with six Venezuelans. He identified the Americans as Airan Berry and Luke Denman. Also captured was one of the operation’s leaders, former Capt. Antonio Sequea.

The Americans, Goudreau said, were fellow former Special Forces members he had known for years who had joined the operation as “supervisors.” He said he has engaged a lawyer in Venezuela and was reaching out to the State Department to try to secure their release.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/th ... story.html




President Trump says it wasn't him:

President Trump denied any U.S. involvement in the incident, saying that “it has nothing to do with our government.”

The State Department said that it could not comment on the reported arrests, citing privacy considerations, but added that “there is a major disinformation campaign underway by the Maduro regime, making it difficult to separate facts from propaganda.”

The two men were captured, along with six others, on Monday when the small boat they were traveling in attempted to land along Venezuela’s coastline, only to be met by Venezuelan military and police forces. On Sunday, eight others, apparently Venezuelans, were killed and two were captured in a separate landing attempt, according to Venezuelan reports.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... todayworld




At least these chaps had no air cover. It's always a dead giveaway if the US air force is overhead at moments like these.

This has all the feel of mercenary incompetence. A bit like the blokes who thought Simon Mann would make their fortunes by plundering Equatorial Guinea.

I haven't yet looked on Google. I might, depending on how the day goes - lots to do today. - but the focus is "two Americans in what he says was a force of about 60 men were captured Monday along with six Venezuelans. He identified the Americans as Airan Berry and Luke Denman. Also captured was one of the operation’s leaders, former Capt. Antonio Sequea. The Americans, Goudreau said, were fellow former Special Forces members he had known for years who had joined the operation as “supervisors"", if anyone would like a go.

Supervisors. A very intelligence agency word, supervisors.

In an interview with my colleagues on Monday, Goudreau said the two captured Americans — identified as Airan Berry and Luke Denman — had been in a boat off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast late Sunday, hoping for extraction, before they were seized by Maduro’s forces. Now, he wants U.S. officials to “engage and try to get these guys back,” Goudreau told The Washington Post. “They are Americans. They are ex-Green Berets. Come on.”


Someone, somewhere, is paying for this story to be publicized. This is from the website blurb at Silvercorp:

Very few individuals are experts in handling crisis situations. Inexperienced leaders can make rash decisions, react too quickly to the situation, or worse, not react at all in hopes that the situation will work itself out. Nowadays, with the way information travels instantaneously, crisis situations typically do not “just work themselves out.” You need to intervene before the situation escalates. If you are looking for help managing a crisis, Silvercorp USA is highly experienced in handling the whole spectrum of crisis situations.

https://www.silvercorpusa.com/




which sounds a lot like the storytelling that just started up. The events themselves go back several months, so the flurry this week is deliberate. https://apnews.com/79346b4e428676424c0e ... todayworld came out five days ago and carries a lot of the background.

[john]

https://nypost.com/2020/05/18/ex-green- ... an-leader/ continues the tale.

Friends and relatives of two US mercenaries captured by Venezuela in a botched attempt to oust President Nicolás Maduro said they believe the former special forces soldiers would only have taken part in the mission had they been convinced it was backed by the White House, according to a report.

Luke Denman and Airan Berry have appeared on Venezuelan TV admitting their role in the wild May 3 attack, which authorities said was orchestrated by former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau and Gen. Cliver Alcala, a Venezuelan army defector.

They are among 34 combatants taken into custody for the raid, which Goudreau reportedly helped set up to cash in on a $15 million US bounty for Maduro’s capture.

Eight mercenaries were killed in the operation, which Maduro has blamed on the US, the Colombian government and Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.

President Trump and Guaido have denied any involvement.

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The rabid offshore killers attempting to overthrow the government of Venezuela are hammering Internet outlets wherever the opportunity arrises.

This is the latest report I've noticed:

The campaign to blacklist The Grayzone was initiated by Wikipedia editors who identify as Venezuelans and openly support the country’s right-wing, US-backed opposition. These users obsessively monitor Venezuela-related articles, aggressively pushing a regime-change line and working to excise any piece of information or opinion that interferes with their agenda.

This online cabal of Venezuelan opposition supporters has been joined by an assortment of neoconservatives who spend countless hours per day, every day of the week, inundating Wikipedia articles with talking points defending Western intervention and demonizing NATO’s Official Enemies.

Together, this tiny handful of editors has successfully banned Wikipedia from citing The Grayzone, falsely claiming that the website publishes unreliable, false, or fabricated information. In fact, in its more than four years of existence, including its first two years hosted at the website AlterNet (whose use is not forbidden on Wikipedia), The Grayzone has never had to issue a major correction or retract a story.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wiki ... e-editing/

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Goudreau, in an interview with The Washington Post, confirmed that two Americans in what he says was a force of about 60 men were captured Monday along with six Venezuelans. He identified the Americans as Airan Berry and Luke Denman.

Twenty years jail apiece, the two Americans. I'm moderately surprised they've survived this long.

Jordan Goudreau is, as far as I can discover, immune from the attentions of any court in this matter, but I doubt he'll take his holidays in Venezuela any time soon.

Denman, 34, and Berry, 41, are former special forces soldiers who appeared in video shown on Venezuelan state TV earlier this year.

In the video, Denman appears to confess to his involvement in "Operation Gideon" - a plot to either kill President Maduro or kidnap him and take him to the United States.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-53686509

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The president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, has been assassinated in his home by a group of armed men who also seriously injured his wife, according to a statement and comments made by the country’s interim prime minister.

Speaking on a local radio station, Claude Joseph confirmed that Moïse, 53, had been killed, saying the attack was carried out by an “armed commando group” that included foreigners.

[...] The assassination is likely to plunge the impoverished Caribbean nation into further turmoil after several years marked by political unrest and violence. The US embassy said it would be closed on Wednesday owing to the “ongoing security situation”, and the White House said Joe Biden was due to be briefed on the attack.

“We’re still gathering information,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on MSNBC. “We’re still assessing right now.”

“It’s a horrific crime,” Psaki added in an interview with CNN. “We stand ready and stand by them to provide any assistance that’s needed.”

As details of the assassination emerged, the Colombian president, Iván Duque, also called on the Organisation of American States to send an urgent mission to “protect the democratic order in Haiti”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... sassinated

Meanwhile, to bring the Venezuela account a little more up to date, https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/invest ... 58084.html

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I say. Guess who's back in the limelight.

A federal indictment unsealed this week in Tampa, Florida, accuses Jordan Goudreau and a Venezuelan partner, Yacsy Álvarez, of violating US arms control laws when they allegedly assembled and sent to Colombia AR-styled weapons, ammo, night vision goggles and other defense equipment requiring a US export license.

Goudreau, 48, also was charged with conspiracy, smuggling goods from the United States and unlawful possession of a machine gun, among 14 counts. He was being held at the Metropolitan detention center in Brooklyn.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... n-arrested

Lord knows who he annoyed this time.

[Comi23]

Looks like Jordan Goudreau's back in hot water again! This time, he's facing 14 counts, including violating US arms control laws and conspiracy.

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Looks like Jordan Goudreau's back in hot water again! This time, he's facing 14 counts, including violating US arms control laws and conspiracy.

74%
Probability AI generated

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On Wednesday, August 7, 2024, the United States government filed a motion in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida to revoke the pretrial release order granted to Jordan Guy MacDonald Goudreau by a magistrate judge in New York on July 30, 2024.

Goudreau, a 48-year-old Canadian-born U.S. citizen, is facing charges for his alleged involvement in a failed coup attempt to invade Venezuela by sea in May 2020. The indictment, handed down in July 2024, charges Goudreau with conspiracy to violate export laws, smuggling, violations of the Arms Export Control Act, and possession of unregistered firearms.

Specifically, prosecutors accuse Goudreau of illegally procuring and exporting sophisticated military equipment such as assault-style rifles, night vision goggles, and silencers from his home in Florida to aid rebel forces in Colombia. Some of these items were later seized by Colombian authorities in March 2020 as they were being transported to camps for mercenaries training for the invasion of Venezuela. Goudreau’s DNA was allegedly found on two of the recovered weapons.

In their motion, prosecutors argue that Goudreau poses a serious flight risk given the serious charges and penalties he faces. They note he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison on some of the export charges. If convicted, prosecutors believe Goudreau will try to flee prosecution.

Evidence in the court filing suggests Goudreau actively researched how to escape authorities, and even entered Mexico illegally in May 2020 using his U.S. passport after his role in the failed coup became known. Internet search queries allegedly made by Goudreau in the same time frame included terms like “best countries for asylum,” “run from the feds,” and “ride the beast Mexico.” The government also claims Goudreau secured a Mexican driver’s license and vehicle registration during this time period but did not legally re-enter the U.S.

Additionally, prosecutors claim Goudreau has maintained significant amounts of cryptocurrency, which is often used to facilitate criminal activity anonymously. Records showed Goudreau had around $44,000 in a U.S.-based crypto exchange as of June 2024.

https://blocktribune.com/flight-risk-cl ... osecutors/

I found this from 8 months ago, browsing the topic:

“We highly commend the Biden administration for their moral courage in negotiating to gain the release of these unjustly held Americans,” said Foley Foundation President and Founder Diane Foley.

The Biden administration released Alex Saab, an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who was arrested in 2020 by the U.S. for money laundering, in exchange for the release of Americans including Airan Berry and Luke Denman, who have been held by Venezuela since 2020

https://jamesfoleyfoundation.org/press- ... venezuela/

"unjustly held Americans"? Airan Berry and Luke Denman?

What??

I know little of Foley Foundation President and Founder Diane Foley, but she should not tell lies.