Ex-US Green Beret Claims Authorship in Failed Terrorist Plots in Venezuela

Venezuela’s government has frustrated now twice, on Sunday and Monday, mercenaries from illegally trying to enter the country in order to carry out attacks and among those arrested are former soldiers, mercenaries, and United States’ operatives. All behind “Operation Gedeon,” a new attempt to oust President Nicolas Maduro and destabilize Venezuela. 

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As news about the foiled attempts came out, parallelly a United States former Army special forces operative claimed responsibility. The man is Jordan Goudreau, a former Green Beret who recorded himself saying he’s been hired by lawmaker Juan Guaido to overthrow Venezuela’s President Maduro.

Goudreau served in Iraq and Afghanistan and now runs a Florida-based security company called Silvercorp USA since 2018. The company’s website gloats about having operations in more than 50 countries, with an advisory team made up of former diplomats, experienced military strategists, and heads of multinational corporations.

Yet Goudreau’s story with Venezuela is quite recent as it goes back to February 2019, when he worked security at a concert in support of Guaido organized by British billionaire Richard Branson on the Venezuelan-Colombian border.

“Controlling chaos on the Venezuela border where a dictator looks on with apprehension,” he wrote in a photo of himself on the concert stage posted to his Instagram account as an AP investigation reported. 

Soon after he met Lester Toledo, then Guaido’s coordinator for the delivery of so-called humanitarian aid. In Bogota, it was Toledo who introduced Goudreau to Cliver Alcala, the ringleader of the Venezuelan military deserters that are hiding in Colombia and who is now in U.S. custody on charges of drug trafficking.  

According to Goudreau, his plan had been coordinated with Guaido who signed a contract on Oct. 16, 2019, for US$212 million. Miami-based opposition Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo published the document Sunday evening, which she purported to be a copy of the original contract. 

Poleo interviewed Goudreau, who asserted that Silvercorp was hired to provide services, including “strategic planning,” “equipment procuring” and “project execution advisement,” by none other than Guaido, who despite the evidence has denied it. 

Also, several audio recordings of an alleged conference call between Guiado, Goudreau, and senior Guaido envoy Sergio Vergara, in which they agreed to sign the contract were released. Now he has gone public arguing he only got US$50,000 through political consultant Juan Jose Rendon and the opposition kept promising to get him the rest but didn’t deliver.

The U.S. mercenary was allegedly responsible for training a contingent of 300 Venezuelan army deserters in three makeshift camps alongside the Colombian-Venezuelan border who were to enter Venezuela in a heavily armed caravan and seize the capital within 96 hours.

In a video released on social media, Goudreau confirmed that the amphibious landing attempt on Sunday had been launched from Colombia as part of “Operation Gedeon” and that “other units” were active in the “south, west, and east of Venezuela.”

Alongside retired National Guard Captain Javier Nieto Quintero - who was involved in the failed attempt to kill Maduro with a drone in 2018 - they claimed that the operation is aimed to “capture” high-ranking officials and “liberate” the Venezuelan people.

However, as of now, the Venezuelan Armed Forces have frustrated two incursions, eight terrorists were killed and more than a dozen captured. 

Among the detained is Antonio Jose Sequea, who was photographed on April 30, 2019, alongside Leopoldo Lopez during the failed coup attempt in Caracas. Also, Adolfo Baduel, son of retired general Raul Baduel former Defense Minister to Hugo Chavez; and two alleged and currently named U.S. citizens.

On Sunday, after the first attack was stopped Silvercorp’s account tweeted “strikeforce incursion into Venezuela. 60 Venezuelan, 2 American ex-Green Beret.” Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said the government has evidence linking the attacks to the U.S. and Colombia. 

As the plot thickens, with now three alleged U.S. operatives under Venezuelan custody and a public admission from a mercenary hired by Guaido, the repeated charges from Venezuela that the U.S. and its local opposition want a violent and undemocratic overthrow of the current government are more real than ever.