Alleged Maduro co-conspirator says CIA knew about coup plans

A retired Venezuelan army general says U.S. officials at the highest levels of the CIA and other federal agencies were aware of his efforts to oust Nicolas Maduro – a role he says should immediately debunk criminal charges that he worked alongside the socialist leader to flood the U.S. with cocaine.

The stunning accusation came in a court filing late Friday by attorneys for Cliver Alcala seeking to have thrown out narcoterrorist charges filed nearly two years ago by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

“Efforts to overthrow the Maduro regime have been well known to the United States government,” Alcala’s attorneys said in a November 2021 letter to prosecutors that accompanied their motion to have the charges dismissed.. “His opposition to the regime and his alleged efforts to overthrow it were reported to the highest levels of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, and the Department of the Treasury.”

The court records raise fresh questions about what the Trump administration knew about the failed plot to oust Maduro involving Jordan Goudreau, an idealistic if battle-scarred former U.S. Green Beret, and a ragtag army of Venezuelan military deserters he was helping Alcala train at secret camps in Colombia around the time of his arrest.

Alcala has been an outspoken critic of Maduro almost since he took office in 2013 following the death of Hugo Chavez.

But despite such open hostility toward Maduro, he and his sworn enemy were charged together in a second superseding indictment with being part of a cabal of senior Venezuelan officials and military officers that worked with Colombian rebels to allegedly send 250 metric tons of cocaine a year to the U.S. .

While the attorneys provided no details about what U.S. government may have known about Alcala’s coup plotting, they said they believe his activities “were communicated at the highest levels of a number of U.S. government agencies” including the CIA, Treasury and Justice departments, the NSC and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

To that end they are seeking documents and information, much of it classified, regarding communications between U.S. officials and members of Venezuela’s opposition about Alcala. Those U.S. officials include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Attorney General William Barr as well as senior officials at the White House and unnamed CIA operatives in Colombia.

The CIA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent Friday night.

Also named as having knowledge of Alcala’s activities are two allies of opposition leader Juan Guaido — who the U.S. recognizes as Venezuela’s legitimate leader — as well as Miami-based political strategist J.J. Rendon, who signed on behalf of Guaido a never-executed agreement for Goudreau to carry out a snatch and grab operation against Maduro.

“The evidence is clear that he has been openly and actively opposed to his alleged co-conspirators for at least the past eight years,” attorneys wrote in the letter to prosecutors included in Friday’s filing. “Indeed, his conduct, in support of the democratic ideals in which he believes, constituted treason against the very people whom the government alleges were his co-conspirators for which they seek his detention, imprisonment, and life.”

In the telling of Alcala`s attorneys, on the eve of launching what would’ve been his second armed raid against Maduro, the former army major general received a knock on the door from a U.S. law enforcement official at his home in Barranquilla, Colombia informing him that he had been indicted.

“The agent informed (him) that he could either board a private jet bound for New York or be held in a Colombian jail where he would no doubt be targeted by the Venezuelan intelligence services for assassination,” Alcala’s attorneys claim. “Left with little choice, [he] agreed to accompany the agent back to the United States.”

Although Alcala was out of the picture in a Manhattan jail, a small group of would-be freedom fighters pushed ahead and on May 3, 2020 – two days after an investigation by The Associated Press blew the lid on the clandestine camps – launched a crossborder raid that was easily mopped up.