‘Coup’ like something out of a bad action movie
To the residents of Macuto, a small coastal settlement on the Caribbean, the invasion seemed real enough. As dawn broke, two coastguard speedboats blasted across its bay, followed by a military helicopter. Only half a kilometre from the shore, their searchlights focused on an open fishing boat.
The shooting began in front of the Eduards Resort hotel. Wilfren Martinez, 22, a fisherman, recalls someone shouting at him to get down. ‘‘They were firing bullets like madmen,’’ he said. Within minutes, eight alleged invaders were dead.
According to the Venezuelan government, the landing at Macuto last Sunday was the opening act of an attempted coup, orchestrated by the US.
The plotters’ idea that 60 mercenaries could outfox a heavily armed Latin American dictatorship seems the stuff of a 1970s Hollywood film. Many Venezuelans, long used to the lies of their government, still wonder whether the whole episode was an elaborate distraction planned not in Washington, but in Caracas.
The truth appears to lie halfway. Evidence uncovered by The Washington Post has revealed that this bizarre adventure began to take shape in Miami last year. The revelations appear deeply damaging for Juan Guaido, the opposition leader who since January last year has been recognised by the US and about 60 other nations as the legitimate interim president of Venezuela, on the grounds that incumbent Nicolas Maduro was a dictator.
Last September in a luxurious Miami apartment, the paper reported, a committee appointed by Guaido listened to a presentation by a former US special forces soldier, detailing how he proposed to send hundreds of armed men into
Venezuela to capture Maduro and fly him to the US.
Representing Guaido at that meeting was JJ Rendon, a Venezuelan-born political consultant who secured election victories for several Latin American leaders. A trained psychologist with a penchant for black frock coats that lent him the aura of a Bond villain, he was appointed ‘‘commissioner for general strategy and crisis management’’, by the ‘‘interim government’’ of Guaido last year.
The plan, codenamed Project Resolution Operation, was presented by Jordan Goudreau, 43, a decorated US special forces veteran and chief executive of his own private security company, Silvercorp USA. Its website showed Goudreau in action poses. Like Rendon, he appeared inspired by James Bond. His personal email included the numbers 007. The adventurer, it seemed, had a captive audience.
In October, the two sides signed a contract. It set out ‘‘an operation to capture/detain/remove Nicolas Maduro . . . remove the current regime and install the recognised Venezuelan President Juan Guaido’’. Silvercorp’s fee was $213 million (NZ$347m), to be paid in instalments, and in oil once the new government was installed.
Rendon has admitted signing a contract with Silvercorp, but said that it was ‘‘exploratory’’ and cancelled weeks later when Goudreau began acting ‘‘erratically’’, demanding $1.5m. Goudreau has accused the opposition of reneging on a legal agreement. He has produced a copy of a contract with Guaido’s signature on it, and an audio recording in which a man sounding like the opposition leader said, ‘‘thank you . . . for all the effort for the cause’’. Guaido’s office has insisted there is no relationship with Silvercorp.
Undeterred by losing his client, Goudreau appears to have gone rogue, pressing ahead with his operation to ‘‘liberate’’ Venezuela. In January he flew to Colombia, where training began for the 50 or so recruits, mostly defectors from the Venezuelan armed forces. One of his contacts there was Cliver Alcala, an exiled Venezuelan major-general. Alcala had fallen out with Maduro.
In March, weapons were found by Colombian police in a lorry near the border. Alcala, who by then had been indicted by the US for drug trafficking, and was about to be extradited, admitted procuring the weapons. He accused Guaido of reneging on a deal.
Goudreau continued with the mission, without participating. The Venezuelan authorities say that two boats set off from Colombia on May 1. After the gunfight in Macuto, the second vessel changed course, washing up in the state of Aragua, 160km west of its destination. On board were Luke Denman, 34, and Airan Berry, 41, US ex-soldiers who had been ‘‘supervisors’’ in the raid.
Both were interrogated. On Thursday Berry confirmed that the plan was to capture Maduro. When asked how, he said: ‘‘I’m not exactly sure – however necessary.’’
President Donald Trump insisted the operation had ‘‘nothing to do’’ with the US government. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, said there was ‘‘no direct involvement’’, adding: ‘‘If we’d have been involved, it would have gone differently.’’
‘‘It’s been like watching an action movie. But a low-budget one’’, said Julieta Cruz Castro, a hairdresser in Caracas.
John Gartner, an Australian former SAS officer who runs a private security company, told The Times: ‘‘It’s a risk in this business: peripheral lunatics who tempt the innocent or uninformed or stupid with stupendous riches.’’
Yesterday Venezuela’s attorneygeneral said that two former US soldiers had been charged with terrorism and conspiracy over a failed invasion.
The Times