Arrest of active-duty Navy Seal.
The coup plot comes just a month and a half after President Nicolás Maduro was reelected in the presidential election. Which to date, the United States has refused to recognize.
In a press conference given on September 14, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced that authorities had dismantled an operation reportedly backed by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the National Intelligence Center of Spain, which sought to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, Cabello, and other government officials. The minister announced that Venezuelan authorities had seized 400 weapons from the US and arrested 14 mercenaries who were involved in the plot. Among the arrested is Wilber Joseph Castañeda, an active US military officer and Navy Seal. Two Spanish citizens were reportedly also arrested, José María Basua and Andrés Badasbe.
Officials stated that according to a document they seized from one of the detainees, the plot included attacking the Miraflores Palace and other public institutions, in addition to carrying out sabotage actions against various public services to generate chaos.
According to officials, those arrested possessed between 10-12 weapons in their homes that were set to be used in the destabilization plan. Cabello noted that many of those arrested also have links to Venezuela’s far-right opposition network.
He added that the weapons seized by authorities were brought to the country in “apparently legal” shipments and received by groups linked to the extreme right.
One of the leaders of the illegal arms trafficking network in the country, Cabello claimed, is a man who is already a fugitive from Venezuelan justice, Iván Simonovis. “Because of the capture of this weaponry here in Venezuela, they have taken actions in other countries that have included the murder of people. Simonovis knows what I am talking about,” he stated.
Venezuela has demanded that the United States government respond to the incident and “clarify the use of its agencies and the use of its territory to traffic weapons aimed at overthrowing a democratically elected government.”
Cabello declared: “The United States is behind this operation, they are delivering these weapons so that they circulate freely and reach Venezuela…They can say what they want, their agents are confessing. Castañeda is the head of the operation [of] the CIA here and they have a link with criminal groups in Venezuela.”
Regarding the Venezuelan state’s intelligence capacities, Cabello stated: “Let the world know that we are going to use all the necessary mechanisms to repel, to defeat these groups of mercenaries, of terrorists who try to undermine peace and order in Venezuela…prepare to be defeated again.”