INVASION
still other signs of torture such as hard blows and strangulation.
Evidence also suggests that some of the invaders were executed at one site and placed hours later at another location, he said, noting the coagulated blood did not correspond to the position in which the bodies were later found. Additionally, photos don’t show weapons near the bodies, he said.
And another indication of a staged firefight, according to Azuaje, comes from photos of the boat used by the invaders. The small vessel shows numerous bullet holes, some of them below the waterline, yet none of the bullets struck gasoline-filled barrels on board.
Pantera was among the dead in Macuto and was one of the three people hired to pilot the first, advancing boat, said Cacique, who said he served as a link between Caribe and the men who participated in Operation Gideon.
The five survivors from the first vessel are among the 47 would-be invaders that the regime now has behind bars. They are said to be under special watch and moved from time to time.
“These people, of course, have them under extreme security measures because they are the only witnesses to the execution of those guys,” Cacique said.
FILLING IN BLANKS
The events described by Cacique, who is in hiding in the United States, are a puzzle piece in a story whose details are only now beginning to fit together.
Two American associates of Goudreau, former special operations soldiers
Luke Denman and Airan Berry, were captured and hastily sentenced in Venezuela to 20-year prison terms. Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has been working on behalf of their families to seek their freedom.
The two Americans were aboard a larger second vessel that carried the bulk of the invading force. The turncoats were believed to be on the second vessel carrying the Americans and 46 people in all.
Cacique and others believe the regime was unaware of this second boat during the May 3 incursion, because naval patrols did not immediately go out looking for it. It was found late in the afternoon about an hour from Macuto, adrift at sea and idling as it was almost out of fuel.
“Pantera was killed on Sunday at 3:30 in the morning. It was many hours later, in the afternoon of that same day, that there was information about the other boat,” said Cacique, who added it had lagged behind after stopping in the state of Falcón state to avoid a naval frigate.
When the men returned to sea from Falcón, they lost one of the two large engines. They were forced to run the remaining one at full throttle to push the heavily loaded vessel in an attempt to compensate for the engine loss.
That quickly depleted fuel reserves, Cacique said. By the time they were chased by regime forces, their boat was virtually dead at sea, the remaining engine barely running. The only photo from the 40hour passage shows Berry and Denman on the boat.
“They ran out of gas, and had no choice but to get closer to shore. By that time, they were looking at the shoreline and they knew they were being watched. There was movement of vehicles from the coast. You could see the road. They looked for a less dangerous place to approach and saw this village of civilians. By that time, helicopters were already coming behind,” Cacique said.
Upon landing, the men separated and tried to flee but most were captured that same day. Others were captured in the following days as the regime forces hunted them down.
Of the 50 men who left La Guajira, a coastal city in Colombia, only four managed to escape into the mountains and evade search operations.
TELLING THE STORY
Goudreau broke a months-long silence in an investigative report published on Oct. 30 by the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald and their parent company McClatchy, all of whom were given the entire contents of his phone, showing texts, emails, chats, photos and videos.
The contents show the frantic communication from men in the field back to Goudreau, confirming the chaotic events described by Cacique.
At 2:23 p.m. on May 3, a man identifying himself as Antonio wrote Goudreau asking if Pantera was dead.
“It is not confirmed; be ready hermano,” he responded. “We are engaging the enemy in Caracas.”
Around 20 minutes later, Goudreau sent another message: “Attack any of your objectives.”
By the next day, text and voicemail messages started pouring in to Goudreau — some from Venezuelan well-wishers, some from people who wanted to join up and still others from journalists.
The phone logs show Goudreau frantically trying to get Denman and Berry out safely.
At 5.40 a.m. on May 4 he wrote a friend that the “pilot boat was hit bad” but the “majority of the force made landfall.”
“The boys [Denman and Berry] are alive,” he wrote around two hours later to the same friend. “Escape and evading in Venezuela.”
The only communication between Cacique and Goudreau on the phone dates to 3:30 p.m. on May 4.
“I need the last name of Luke and Aaron,” Cacique wrote, misspelling Berry’s first name.
In a lawsuit filed in South Florida on Oct. 30, Goudreau identified Trump administration officials
Andrew “Drew” Horn and Jason Beardsley, who he alleged were aware of his plans to topple the Venezuelan government and encouraged him. These officials declined to comment, as did the State Department.
A former U.S. special operations fighter awarded three Bronze Stars for valor, Goudreau also identified participation by former Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller. Through an associate, Schiller acknowledged bringing Goudreau to a single meeting about humanitarian aid to Venezuela but denied any additional relationship with him or helping in a coup effort.
The story behind the botched coup is full of intrigue, with Goudreau claiming to have held meetings at the Trump Doral golf resort in South Florida and at the Trump hotel blocks from the White House. Another source described meetings at dusk on the 12th fairway of the Red Course of Trump Doral in the back of rolling limousines and in restaurants.
Weeks after everything went awry on the Venezuelan coastline, agents from the Tampa office of the FBI raided a Boca Raton apartment on May 21 where Goudreau was visiting and seized nearly $57,000 in cash. Multiple people with knowledge of events said a federal investigation was ongoing.
Miami attorney Gustavo J. Garcia-Montes brought the $1.4 million breach of contract lawsuit on behalf of Goudreau against Juan Jose Rendon and others who he said purported to represent Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan lawmaker the Trump administration rec
ognizes as the legitimate president of Venezuela
Weeks after the report, the lawyer shared a Nov. 6 letter from the FBI noting that the Justice Department “declined to file a civil forfeiture complaint” and that Goudreau’s money would be returned.
The FBI “does not comment upon the existence nor the nonexistence of any investigation,” the agency said in a statement to the Herald and McClatchy.
Still, the letter appeared to send a signal about prosecution.
“They are not moving forward, or they are moving forward very slowly on the investigation and have not been able to get to a moment where they can indict,” Garcia-Montes said.
“Because, had they come out with an indictment, they would probably have assigned the funds to a criminal case. And they were coming up on a deadline on the administrative forfeiture case.”