Venezuelan insurgent: Betrayal in ranks led to coup failure, summary executions

More than four dozen men who set out in motorboats on the first day of May from Colombia as part of a botched coup known as Operation Gideon, a doomed attempt at ousting Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro, were betrayed by five companions who sold the exact landing coordinates shortly before departure, says a high-ranking insurgent.

In an exclusive interview, the man involved in Gideon broke his silence to detail events that led to the capture of 47 Venezuelans and two Americans, and the execution of six Gideon participants.

The Maduro regime knew precisely where the first boat would arrive and soldiers were waiting for the would-be liberators as they attempted their landing, said the man who goes by Cacique, noting the mission had been compromised.

An article published by the Associated Press hours before the launch had warned the world of an impending coup attempt by former soldiers from the Venezuelan military, trained by associates of former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau and his company, Silvercorp USA.

The invaders still believed they could succeed. They trusted that the regime didn’t know exactly where in Venezuela they would enter and when, and they were convinced that Venezuelans would rise up in support, Goudreau and Cacique both said.

The broader insurgency effort is believed to have been infiltrated much earlier, but the plotters’ bet was that the regime didn’t know the key details.

“Forty-eight hours earlier, the operation was sold,” according to Cacique, a Venezuelan rebel officer who operated the communications center for the failed incursion from an undisclosed city in the United States. “There is a traitor ... who sold the operation two or three days before and who was leading a group of five, who were wrapped up in collecting a reward for tipping to the invaders’ arrival.”

In his first interview since the events in May, Cacique, a Spanish nickname given to a local political boss, said the turncoats hoped to receive a reward for the capture of Robert Colina, whose alias was Pantera, Spanish for panther.

Colina led the Gideon advance team, and had been a captain in the National Guard, the military component in Venezuela charged with domestic security.

The identities of the other 10 rebels on the boat with Pantera were unknown by the regime. Pantera was the prize sought by Maduro and offered by the turncoats.

The official regime version of events, from Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, is that there was a firefight after Pantera and colleagues began firing on agents who were waiting for them when they touched land.