Tag: venezuela

Shock Report: Macron and France Were Prepared for ‘War’ with America After Maduro Raid

French President Emmanuel Macron said his country was willing to engage in a “shooting war” with the U.S. earlier this year, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Macron made the decision earlier this year after American forces carried out a precision strike in Venezuela that led to the arrest of former dictator Nicolas Maduro.

The French president reportedly made comments about fighting Americans over Greenland, the desolate Danish island that could prove crucial to keeping non-NATO powers out of the North Atlantic.

With President Donald Trump expressing his desire to acquire the island as a territory for the U.S., coupled with the success of the raid to capture Maduro for drug crimes, Macron reportedly was prepared to fight one of his country’s oldest allies — an ally that twice saved it from German aggression in the last century.

In a report with multiple authors, the Journal reported:

It was almost midnight in Brussels and the leaders of Europe were locked in their fifth hour of an emergency meeting with a single theme for discussion: how to manage a breakup with America.

The new year was only three weeks old and President Trump, after removing Venezuela’s autocratic strongman, had briefly threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark. Around a circular table in the European Council headquarters known as “The Space Egg,” heads of government were venting so emotionally about the 47th president that some of the nearly 30 leaders present would later call the session “therapy night.”

In a room where no phones or recording devices were permitted, Macron reportedly said, “We are drawing a line here.”

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Venezuelan Earthquake Rescuer Who Criticized Socialists on Camera Disappears

Locals in La Guaira, the most devastated state of Venezuela following last week’s twin earthquakes, denounced on Thursday that a man known as “El Topo de la Guaira,” identified as Wilmer Antonio Cruz, disappeared on Wednesday night after repeatedly condemning the socialist regime for failing to help those trapped in rubble.

Cruz had been working for days as a volunteer at the collapsed building he is believed to have lived in before the earthquakes, which international media identified as OPPPE 26 in Caraballeda, a massive complex featuring 876 apartments before it fell apart. Video interviews with the man recorded prior to his disappearance this week show him shirtless, using a bucket and a hammer to dig through a massive pile of debris looking for trapped neighbors.

Two earthquakes, registering magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, struck Venezuela on the night of June 24, devastating La Guaira and parts of Caracas, the national capital. Venezuela was already suffering from the near-total lack of a competent healthcare system, extreme poverty, and a dearth of emergency services as a result of over two decades of socialist rule, leaving it poorly equipped to address the disaster. The American space agency NASA estimated this week, using satellite images, that the earthquakes damaged or destroyed as many as 60,000 buildings as the socialist regime had built massive public housing complexes without following appropriate earthquake protocols.

As of Friday, the Venezuelan government has documented 2,595 deaths as a result of the earthquakes and claims to have rescued 6,462 people. The United Nations and opposition groups estimate that over 50,000 people are missing, their chance of making it out of the rubble alive dwindling rapidly.

Locals in Caraballeda began denouncing that unidentified regime agents abducted Cruz on Wednesday night. Human rights activist Tamara Suju, sharing videos from eyewitnesses who said they saw Cruz’s detention, shared that the witnesses claimed Cruz intervened to defend a friend who was trying to use construction machinery to break through debris and rescue people, but was stopped by socialist agents.

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Venezuelan Illegal Alien Former Illinois School Teacher Arrested by ICE After Driving Tren de Aragua Gangsters to Chicago House Party Massacre That Killed Three and Wounded Five

A 32-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant who was teaching in an Illinois classroom has been arrested by ICE for allegedly acting as the driver and getaway accomplice for two Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang members during a brutal December 2024 mass shooting in Chicago that left three people dead and five others wounded.

Giovanna Mercedes Moreno Occhipinti, a Venezuelan national with dual Italian citizenship, entered the United States in October 2021 under the Visa Waiver Program but overstayed her visa.

She was taken into ICE custody on May 13, 2026, and is currently being held at the Grayson County Detention Center in Leitchfield, Kentucky, pending removal from the country, Fox News reported.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Occhipinti drove two alleged TDA gang members, Ricardo Granadillo Padilla and Edward Martinez Cermeno, to a house party in Chicago’s Gage Park neighborhood on December 2, 2024.

The gunmen opened fire on the crowd. Three people were killed and five were wounded. Federal authorities say she then helped the shooters flee the scene of the slaughter.

Chicago Police arrested Occhipinti just three days later, on December 5, 2024, after finding multiple weapons in her vehicle. But because Chicago and Illinois are militant sanctuary jurisdictions, she was released without ICE ever being notified, despite the obvious public safety threat tied to a triple homicide.

The two actual shooters were eventually deported. One had even been released from ICE custody earlier by a federal judge due to prosecutorial issues. Occhipinti remained free in the community and was reportedly working as a teacher at a school in the Chicago suburb of Elgin until HSI agents finally tracked her down months later.

Illinois officials have refused to disclose to DHS which school employed her.

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Venezuelan Activists: Helicoide Torture Complex Still Active Despite Regime Claims of ‘Shutdown’

The Venezuelan non-governmental human rights organization Justice, Encounter, and Forgiveness (JEP) said this week that the Venezuelan socialist regime’s largest and most infamous torture complex, the Helicoide (“The Helix”), remains operational despite the regime’s claims.

The Helicoide is a structure in southern Caracas’s San Agustín parish built in the 1950s during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, originally conceived as the world’s first drive-thru shopping mall. The plans never materialized following Pérez Jiménez’s downfall in 1958 and the building remained unfinished.

The Venezuelan socialist regime turned the facility into what has been largely described as the largest torture center in Latin America. Following the arrest of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces on January 3, “acting President” Delcy Rodriguez announced that the Helicoide would be shut down and “transformed” into a “cultural center” for local residents of San Agustín.

On Tuesday, over three months since the “shutdown” announcement, JEP explained that the Helicoide remains operational and at least 25 political prisoners are still unjustly detained in the complex.

“We understand that international statements are based on prior institutional commitments and information, but the reality of human rights demands that we compare these announcements with the actual situation of the people affected,” the statement read in part.

“Behind every statistic are families who are still waiting for answers today; therefore, it is not possible to consider a facility closed as long as there are citizens deprived of their liberty inside,” the statement continued.

JEP called upon the international community and organizations to continue monitoring the situation — calling all relevant authorities for transparency regarding the actual status of the Helicoide and the 25 political prisoners still detained at the center.

Hours after JEP published its statement, the organization further denounced that “unusual movements” were reported at the Helicoide, including reports about possible transfers of political prisoners at the complex to other unspecified locations.

“These events raise serious questions and reinforce the perception that last-minute decisions are being made to respond to pressure and international scrutiny, rather than to genuinely correct the reported violations,” JEP’s statement read.

“In the face of this situation, we reiterate that the 25 people deprived of liberty for political reasons who remain in the Helicoide must be released immediately,” the statement continued. “Their transfer to another detention center does not constitute a solution nor represent progress in human rights matters. What is required is their full and unconditional release.”

Following Maduro’s capture, the Venezuelan regime began releasing hundreds of political prisoners unjustly detained across several Venezuelan prisons — including former police officers that spent over 23 years imprisoned.

Although hundreds of political prisoners have been released in the first months of 2026, the Venezuelan non-government organization Foro Penal detailed on Wednesday that the Venezuelan socialist regime still holds at least 404 political prisoners as of Monday, June 1 — including at least one child aged between 14 and 17 years old.

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Venezuela Extradites Maduro’s ‘Bagman’ Alex Saab to the US – Shady Businessman Was Previously Pardoned by Biden, and May Now Testify Against Maduro

The cooperation between the US and the new Venezuela continues to bear fruit.

54-year-old Colombian businessman Alex Saab, a close ally of former Venezuelan Dictator Nicolás Maduro, has been reportedly extradited to the US.

He had been arrested in February, in a joint US-Venezuelan operation, and was extradited to the US yesterday (16), less than three years after being pardoned by feeble Joe Biden.

Saab’s deportation was announced in a press release from Venezuela’s Ministry of Justice, which was shared on Instagram.

The New York Post reported:

“Alex Saab, 54, a Colombian-Venezuelan businessman described by US officials as a close ally to Maduro was arrested in Caracas during a joint US-Venezuelan operation in February, according to a US law enforcement official.

‘The deportation was ordered considering that the aforementioned Colombian citizen is involved in the commission of various crimes in the United States of America, as is public knowledge and widely reported’, the statement continued.”

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Trump DOE Removes Highly Enriched Uranium From Venezuela in Major Nuclear Security Win!

The Trump administration has completed the removal of all remaining enriched uranium from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela, marking a major nuclear security victory for the United States, South America, and the world.

According to a post from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the DOE/NNSA worked with international partners to remove all enriched uranium from Venezuela’s RV-1 research reactor.

The agency described the operation as a major nonproliferation success that reduced risk to both South America and the U.S. homeland.

“The safe removal of all enriched uranium from Venezuela sends another signal to the world of a restored and renewed Venezuela,” NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams said, according to the Department of Energy post. 

“Thanks to President Trump’s decisive leadership, the dedicated teams on the ground completed in months what would have normally taken years.”

The uranium came from the RV-1 reactor, which had supported physics and nuclear research for decades. According to DOE/NNSA, once that work ended in 1991, the uranium became surplus material. 

The material was enriched above the crucial 20% threshold, making its removal a serious national security matter.

The operation moved quickly after Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited Venezuela in February. 

In the weeks that followed, NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation worked with State Department personnel in Washington and Caracas, experts from the United Kingdom, the Venezuelan Ministry of Science and Technology, and the International Atomic Energy Agency to prepare the removal.

Less than six weeks after the initial site visit, the team safely removed 13.5 kilograms, or roughly 30 pounds, of uranium from the RV-1 reactor.

The material was securely packaged into a spent fuel cask before being escorted about 100 miles overland to a Venezuelan port. From there, the cargo was transferred to a specialized carrier supplied by the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Transport Solutions.

The vessel then transported the uranium to the United States, where it arrived on U.S. shores in early May.

Upon arrival, American teams unloaded the casks and transported the material to the Savannah River Site for processing and reuse.

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Trump Floats Making Venezuela The 51st State

First Canada, then Greenland… and now Venezuela?

President Donald Trump said Monday he is seriously considering annexing the South American nation as the 51st U.S. state, citing the country’s vast oil reserves and what he described as strong local support for his leadership.

In a telephone interview with Fox News anchor John Roberts, Trump mused that he is weighing the move for a nation that holds an estimated $40 trillion in oil resources.

“Venezuela loves Trump,” the president told the reporter.

The suggestion comes months after U.S. forces conducted a military operation in Venezuela in January that resulted in the capture of longtime President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple was extradited to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism and weapons charges, effectively ending more than a decade of socialist rule that had transformed one of Latin America’s richest economies into an economic disaster marked by hyperinflation, mass emigration and the breakdown of public services.

Rather than installing opposition figure María Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, as the new leader, the Trump administration supported the installation of Delcy Rodríguez—Maduro’s former vice president—as interim president. Trump has described the arrangement as “spectacular” and predicted a rapid economic turnaround.

Rodríguez’s government has moved swiftly on economic reforms. Within weeks of taking power, it enacted legislation opening the oil sector to privatization, dismantling core elements of the Chavista model that had dominated for more than two decades.

Meanwhile, commercial activity has accelerated thanks to Chevron, which signed two agreements expanding its participation in a joint venture with state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA in the Orinoco Oil Belt, Reuters reported at the time.

Venezuelan oil output is already rising.

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Former Congressman David Rivera Convicted of Lobbying for Venezuela

Former Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.) was found guilty on Friday of secretly lobbying on behalf of Venezuela’s government, following a seven-week federal trial.

Rivera—alongside associate Esther Nuhfer—was convicted on all charges, including failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiring to commit money laundering.

Prosecutors said the pair worked for the government of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as part of a covert influence campaign.

According to the government’s case, Rivera leveraged his Republican political connections, including ties from his time in Congress, to push U.S. officials to ease their stance toward Venezuela’s socialist leadership.

Prosecutors alleged that Rivera secured a $50 million lobbying deal from Venezuelan official Delcy Rodríguez, with funds connected to the state oil company PDVSA.

As part of the effort, Rivera worked with Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and others to arrange meetings with U.S. officials and business leaders.

Sessions has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

The case highlighted Miami’s long-standing role as a center of influence in U.S.–Latin America relations, shaped by its large exile community and history of anti-communist activism.

Rivera was first charged in 2022. Prosecutors said he used encrypted communications to conceal his activities, including a messaging group called “MIA.”

One of his key contacts was Venezuelan businessman Raúl Gorrín, who has separately faced U.S. bribery charges.

Messages presented at trial allegedly showed the use of coded language—referring to Maduro as “the bus driver,” Sessions as “Sombrero,” and money as “melons.”

Rivera denied any wrongdoing.

His defense argued that his firm was hired by a U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s oil company, not directly by the Venezuelan government, and therefore did not require registration under foreign agent laws.

They also said his work focused on business matters, including helping Citgo operate in the United States, and on encouraging political change in Venezuela.

However, prosecutors pointed to a related civil case alleging Rivera performed little of the contracted work and used the agreement to mask illegal lobbying.

Of the roughly $20 million he received, they said millions were diverted to personal expenses, including maintaining Gorrín’s luxury yacht.

Prosecutors said Rivera viewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a key ally for gaining access to senior U.S. officials. Rubio was not accused of any misconduct.

Court records showed Rivera met with Rubio in Washington in 2017 and later encouraged him to support negotiations with Maduro, suggesting the United States should help facilitate a peaceful resolution.

The effort ultimately failed.

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U.S. soldier involved in Maduro raid charged with betting on the operation

Federal authorities arrested and charged a U.S. special forces soldier who is accused of using classified information about the raid that removed Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from office to make prediction market bets.

The soldier was identified as Gannon Ken Van Dyke in a news release announcing the indictment.

Van Dyke “bet a total of approximately $33,034” on the Maduro operation on the prediction market platform Polymarket, federal authorities said. He ultimately made more than $409,000 as a result of the bets placed on the U.S. operation, an unsealed indictment alleges.

Authorities said he “participated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro.”

“In total, Van Dyke made approximately 13 bets from Dec. 27, 2025, through the evening of Jan. 26,” the Justice Department said.

Van Dyke was charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.”

Just hours after the U.S. government apprehended Maduro and transported him aboard the USS Iwo Jima, a photograph of Van Dyke was taken and uploaded to his Google account, prosecutors alleged in the indictment.

The image showed Van Dyke on what appeared to be the deck of a ship at sea during sunrise, the indictment stated. In the photograph, he was wearing U.S. military fatigues and carrying a rifle with three others who were also wearing fatigues, the document said.

The image wasn’t included in the indictment and NBC News has not reviewed it.

An attorney for Van Dyke was not listed on the court docket, and no one answered cell phone numbers listed for him Thursday evening.

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The US refinery now processing Venezuelan oil

The Minerva Gloria is docked at a wharf in the Mississippi Sound, not far from the US’s vast oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.

The ship, 820ft (250m) long, painted navy and burgundy, is carrying precious cargo from Venezuela that, just six months ago, would have been impossible to bring to the US – 400,000 barrels of crude oil.

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. Under Venezuela’s former president Nicholas Maduro oil exports had dropped significantly, due to a lack of investment. Then came US sanctions against any imports from the Latin American country.

But US President Donald Trump vowed to tap those reserves after the US military captured Maduro in a surprise, night-time raid in January.

Now the oil is flowing again in Venezuela. In March, the country’s monthly crude exports surpassed one million barrels per day. The first time since September.

As the world reels from the impact on global energy prices caused by Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz, big oil and gas companies like Chevron are now importing Venezuelan crude oil by the shipload.

“It’s a big deal not only for Chevron but the entire Gulf region,” says Tim Potter. He is the director for Chevron’s oil refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the company’s largest operation in the US. It is also the only major US oil company currently operating in Venezuela.

Together this means that Chevron can extract its own Venezuelan oil, process it itself, and get it directly to the US consumer.

“It’s a pretty big incentive for us to run it,” Potter says. “The refinery was really designed, and we invested in the refinery, to run heavy oils like from Venezuela.”

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