Capture: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. AFP/Juan Barreto
By Sue-Ann Wayow
NO más (no more) Maduro.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been captured and flown out of his country.
The announcement came from US President Donald Trump who has long been after Maduro since resuming back the presidency in November 2024.
The full statement from Trump’s Truth Social media states, “The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country.
“This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Further details are currently sketchy at the moment and his statement follows overnight strikes in the Latin American country.
BBC’s Central America and Cuba correspondent Will Grant stated that the war on Venezuela was the biggest US military build-up in the Americas since the Cold War reflecting on airstrikes on speed boats allegedly carrying drugs through Venezuelan waters which has been extended into the eastern Caribbean, Pacific and elsewhere.
To date 110 have been killed, including at least two Trinidadian, in US strikes against narcotraffickers.
US forces have confiscated two sanctioned oil tankers, and a third is being pursued and in December, Trump made reference to the first land strike.
Since the bombing, Venezuela’s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino has said that the government was compiling information about the dead and injured people and alleged that the strikes hit civilian areas.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is demanding proof of life from the US for both Maduro and his wife First Lady Cilia Flores.
Rodríguez had spent the last hours of 2025 and the early hours of 2026 visiting entrepreneurial people in the food industry.
Her last Facebook post stated, “At Iljet Studio Pizza the experience starts in the dough. In the parish El Recreo de Caracas we prepare our own pizza together with Paúl Cordoba, with Venezuelan ingredients. From the foodtruck to the motopizza and the physical place, this undertaking demonstrates that when the Creole talent works, Venezuela innovates, produces and leaves good taste; confirming that the policy of the PDTE. Nicolas Maduro to promote the entrepreneurial initiative of the Venezuelan people had extraordinary achievements in the year 2025.”
