A group of Venezuelans and Colombians mercenaries led by two ex-US soldiers was captured by Venezuelan forces in May 2019 as they attempted enter the Latin American country to kidnap its president and overthrow the government in favor in support of Juanito Guaido.
Several members of the Trump administration were aware of plans for Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro to be kidnapped by forces of the Venezuelan opposition according to the private American security company Silvercorp USA’s founder and former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau in an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald.
Goudreau has made the same allegation in a $1.4 million breach-of-contract lawsuit that he filed against Juan Jose Rendon, a political consultant purportedly working with Juanito Guaido, who was allegedly among those who hired Silvercorp to kidnap Maduro.
Goudreau claims he discussed the plans to overthrow Maduro and to arm Venezuelan “exiles” for that purpose with two administration officials, and alleges he was assured that the initiative, called Operation Gideon, was backed at the highest level in the USA.
Among the people whom the Silvercorp CEO named were Andrew Horn, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence and who is currently working at the office of the director of national intelligence, and Jason Beardsley, an adviser @ the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In addition to this, one of the people funding the coup, heir to the Kraft cheese-making family Roen Kraft, claimed in a conversation with Goudreau that he had discussed the plans with Mike Pence himself.
According to Kraft, Vice President Pence stated that he was very interested in the project and that as soon as it was successful, ‘all doors would be open’”, Goudreau claimed in the lawsuit against Juan Jose Rendon.
An anonymous source in the administration told the Miami Herald that Horn had merely been a detailee on Pence’s domestic policy team and that his responsibilities were not related to matters of national security or Venezuela.
According to Goudreau himself, he decided to come forth with the revelations regarding the alleged involvement of the USA in the coup because he feels “abandoned and scapegoated”, as the FBI currently is seeking to detain the man in relation to his involvement in the Venezuelan coup.
The plot to kidnap Maduro and overthrow his government in favor of opposition figure and US-recognized self-proclaimed interim President Juan Guaido was revealed soon after its executors, a group of Venezuelans and Colombians led by two ex-US soldiers and Silvercorp trained assassins Airan Berry and Luke Denman, were captured by Venezuelan forces on 3 May 2019.
Goudreau later revealed that his company had taken part in the operation in accordance with an agreement signed by Guaido himself, Rendon, and Sergio Vergara, an alleged member of Guaido’s team.
Following the detention of the plotters, specifically the former US assassins, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro accused the White House of orchestrating the attempt to kill or kidnap him and extradite him to the USA.
In a bid to achieve its goals, the USA resorted to imposing sanctions on the Venezuelan economy, which had been suffering from a crisis and hyperinflation ever since 2017.
The sanctions crippled the country’s ability to sell oil abroad and buy equipment for its own refineries, resulting in fuel shortages in addition to the IMF regulated economic crisis.
Washington’s actions, which were denounced by some countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, also limited Caracas’ ability to access its gold reserves, some of which were stored in Western banks.
Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2020.
Silver corpses hanging out to dry?
The planned it?