‘Mercenaries’ held after coup debacle

A botched attempt to topple the regime of Nicolas Maduro with an invasion using fishing dinghies has ended with two American mercenaries in jail and eight people dead, the Venezuelan government has claimed.

State television showed two dishevelled men, named as Airan Berry, 41, and Luke Denman, 34. Both are understood to have served in US special forces. They were among 13 people the government says were captured following two landings along Venezuela’s Caribbean coastline.

‘‘They were playing Rambo. They were playing hero,’’ said President Maduro, referring to the Hollywood action film series.

In a plot perhaps more reminiscent of the 1970s film

the two men were contracted by a Florida-based security company, Silvercorp USA, according to the firm’s owner Jordan Goudreau, who is also a special forces veteran. ‘‘Those are my guys,’’ he confirmed.

‘‘They (captured American mercenaries) were playing Rambo. They were playing hero.’’

Venezuela president

Goudreau said he planned and organised the operation to ‘‘liberate Venezuela’’ and capture Maduro, and that it involved a force of about 60 soldiers.

‘‘The mission in Caracas failed,’’ he told

He insisted that surviving members of his team, some of whom had crossed into the country via Colombia, were still operational and that the next stage would be attacks on ‘‘tactical targets’’.

President Donald Trump has emphatically denied that his administration was involved.