Venezuela Arrests Foreign Nationals in Alleged Assassination Plot; US Denies CIA Involvement

In a star­tling devel­op­ment, Venezue­lan author­i­ties have arrest­ed six for­eign nation­als, includ­ing a pur­port­ed US Navy SEAL, in con­nec­tion with an alleged plot to assas­si­nate Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. 

The Unit­ed States has vehe­ment­ly denied any involve­ment, call­ing the accu­sa­tions “cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly false.”

Arrests and Allegations

Venezue­lan Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Cabel­lo announced the arrests on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2024. The detainees report­ed­ly include:

• Wilbert Cas­tañe­da, iden­ti­fied as a US Navy SEAL
• Two oth­er Amer­i­cans: David Estrel­la and Aaron Bar­rett Logan
• Two Span­ish cit­i­zens: José María Basoa Val­dovi­nos and Andrés Martínez Adasme
• One Czech cit­i­zen: Jan Darmovzal

Cabel­lo claimed that 400 US rifles linked to the alleged plot were also seized. He assert­ed that the CIA was “at the fore­front of this oper­a­tion,” with addi­tion­al involve­ment from Spain’s Nation­al Intel­li­gence Center.

US Response and Diplomatic Tension

The US State Depart­ment swift­ly reject­ed the alle­ga­tions, stat­ing that they “con­tin­ue to sup­port a demo­c­ra­t­ic solu­tion to the polit­i­cal cri­sis in Venezuela.” The depart­ment con­firmed the arrest of one US mil­i­tary mem­ber and is seek­ing infor­ma­tion on two addi­tion­al US cit­i­zens poten­tial­ly detained.

This inci­dent occurs against the back­drop of esca­lat­ing polit­i­cal ten­sions in Venezuela fol­low­ing dis­put­ed elec­tions ear­li­er this year. The Unit­ed States, along with sev­er­al Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries, refus­es to rec­og­nize Maduro’s claimed victory.

Political Crisis in Venezuela

Venezuela remains embroiled in polit­i­cal tur­moil stem­ming from the con­tro­ver­sial July pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Oppo­si­tion leader Edmun­do Gon­za­lez and his sup­port­ers main­tain that the vote was fraud­u­lent, pre­sent­ing evi­dence sug­gest­ing Maduro lost by a sig­nif­i­cant margin.

Key devel­op­ments in the ongo­ing cri­sis include:

• Gon­za­lez flee­ing to Spain after fac­ing arrest war­rants in Venezuela
• US impos­ing sanc­tions on Venezue­lan offi­cials aligned with Maduro
• Seizure of a Venezue­lan plane used by Maduro in the Domini­can Republic
• Inten­si­fied crack­down on dis­sent with­in Venezuela, with thou­sands arrested

International Reactions and Human Rights Concerns

The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to close­ly mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela. Human Rights Watch has described the cur­rent crack­down as the harsh­est in years, with approx­i­mate­ly 2,400 peo­ple arrest­ed and many oth­ers flee­ing the country.

As ten­sions per­sist, the future of Venezue­la’s polit­i­cal land­scape remains uncer­tain, with impli­ca­tions for region­al sta­bil­i­ty and inter­na­tion­al relations.