The first explosions shattered the night over Caracas. Within hours, Nicolás Maduro was gone—captured in a covert U.S. raid that his own government is now calling “imperialist aggression.” Oil, narco-cartels, Trump, secret offers, and the fates of two nations collide in a single, breathtaking operation whose real objective may not be what anyone thi… Continues…
Maduro’s fall came at the very moment he was trying to bargain for his political survival. After years of presiding over a devastated economy and a narco-state pipeline run by outfits like Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles, he reportedly dangled Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and renewed anti-drug cooperation in front of Washington. He publicly invited Chevron back in, appealed directly to the American people, and urged Donald Trump to “speak seriously” about joint efforts against trafficking. Behind that language was a regime cornered by tanker seizures, U.S. strikes on smuggling boats, and mounting international isolation.
Instead of quiet talks, the night sky over Caracas lit up. Low-flying Night Stalkers helicopters, at least seven explosions, and a “large-scale strike” ended with Maduro and his wife on a U.S. aircraft, en route to an unknown fate. Trump confirmed the operation and promised details, while Venezuela’s remaining leadership denounced a colonial war for oil and minerals. They vowed resistance, insisting the people and “legitimate Government” would defend sovereignty and reject forced regime change. But with its longtime strongman in foreign custody and more than a hundred alleged traffickers already killed since U.S. Caribbean operations began, Venezuela now faces an uncertain future—caught between the promise of liberation and the peril of power vacuum, revenge, and escalating confrontation that could redraw the map of the hemisphere.