Venezuela

The US has captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro after a large scale strike on the South American country, US President Donald Trump has said.

Trump said Venezuela’s left-wing president and his wife were flown out of the country in a military operation in conjunction with US law enforcement. They have been charged with drug and weapons offences in New York.

It comes after explosions were reported across the capital Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning, including at military bases.

BBC live feed – US launches strikes on Venezuela, captures President Maduro and charges him with drug offences

CBS Live Feed – U.S. launches military strikes on Venezuela, Trump says Maduro captured and flown out of the country

Venezuelans gather in Chilean capital to celebrate news of US operation

“Come celebrate with us , We love everybody because you America has loved us so much. Thank you America.”

Venezuela is celebrating the capture of tyrant President Nicolas Maduro pic.twitter.com/u0SRmkDlg8

— 112 Fighting Sports (@112FIGHTNSPORTS) January 3, 2026

🚨 BREAKING: Venezuelans in Miami have gathered to celebrate the U.S. capture of Nicolas Maduro

His rein of terrorism and narco trafficking is OFFICIALLY OVER.

🔥🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

pic.twitter.com/8ewL6n9uV8

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 3, 2026

Trump says Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, wife ‘captured’ after large-scale strikes

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were captured by US forces during a “large-scale” nighttime military operation early Saturday, President Trump announced.

“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

US captures Maduro, carries out ‘large scale strike’ in Venezuela

President Donald Trump said the U.S. “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela” and said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were “captured and flown out of the Country.”

The announcement on Trump’s social media platform came shortly before 4:30 a.m. Saturday a few hours after several explosions were heard in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas, witnesses said, and photos and videos showed plumes of smoke and a large fireball in the night sky.

Twitter Venezuela

h/t PA Cat, Canuknucklehead™, patthedog

CBS Live Feed: President Trump ordered strikes on sites inside Venezuela, including military facilities, U.S. officials told CBS News, as the administration early Saturday ratcheted up its campaign against the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

BBC Live – Explosions heard as smoke rises in Venezuelan capital Caracas

Telegraph Live: US launches air strikes on Venezuela

Guardian Live Feed: Venezuela accuses US after explosions and low-flying aircraft reported in Caracas – live

BREAKING: U.S. Officials confirm they have carried out airstrikes in Caracas, Venezuela pic.twitter.com/xiHBSB6ME5

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 3, 2026

🚨#BREAKING: Reuters reports that U.S. ground forces and United States Air Force assets are currently on the ground and active in and around Caracas, Venezuela. Multiple explosions have been reported and observed across the capital as operations continue. pic.twitter.com/96mTpvxmQX

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) January 3, 2026

BREAKING:

Massive U.S. airstrikes against military targets in Caracas, Venezuela.

Dozens of U.S. helicopters are flying above the Venezuelan capital city. pic.twitter.com/48hjTu84FT

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 3, 2026

Twitter – Venezuela

Info is a bit skint no confirmation of US Troops on the ground etc

Donald Trump gave a nonchalant confirmation of the first US land strike in Venezuela during a radio interview last week that received little attention.

The President said that the Christmas Eve strike was on a facility ‘where the ship comes from’ – seemingly referencing the origination location of the alleged drug vessels that the US military has been targeting in the Caribbean and Atlantic over the last three months.

Speaking on WABC on December 26, Trump made the bombshell suggestion that US forces have already started conducting land operations in Venezuela.

US forces on Saturday stopped a second merchant vessel off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, according to two US officials, the Associated Press reported.

The move comes days after Donald Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in to and out of the South American country and follows the seizure by US forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast on 10 December.

The officials were not authorized to discuss publicly the ongoing military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity, the AP said.

Donald Trump and his top advisers have refused to rule out the potential for open conflict with Venezuela as Nicolás Maduro urged his navy to escort oil tankers defying the largest US fleet deployed in the region in decades.

In an interview broadcast on Friday morning, Donald Trump told NBC News that going to war with Maduro’s regime remains on the table. “I don’t rule it out, no,” he said in a phone interview with the network.

And at a year-end press conference at the state department, Marco Rubio doubled down on remarks by other top Trump advisers that the US could coerce Maduro through its campaign of strikes on alleged drug boats travelling toward the United States.

Nicolás Maduro is chased out of office by a massive popular revolt but the Venezuelan military takes to the streets, turning its guns on the civilians who have brought him down.

A palace coup sends Venezuela’s authoritarian leader into exile, sparking a bloody power struggle between members of his disintegrating regime.

Maduro or a key ally is assassinated by a US “decapitation” strike but – as foreign soldiers commandeer Caracas and key airports and ports – leftwing insurgents tighten their grip on the country’s mineral-rich hinterlands and regime loyalists launch guerrilla-style attacks on oil refineries and pipelines.

Donald Trump has exerted more pressure on Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro, expanding sanctions and issuing fresh threats to strike land targets in Venezuela, as the South American dictator accused the US president of ushering in a new “era of criminal naval piracy” in the Caribbean.

Late on Thursday, the US imposed curbs on three nephews of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, as well as six crude oil supertankers and the shipping companies linked to them. The treasury department alleged the vessels “engaged in deceptive and unsafe shipping practices and continue to provide financial resources that fuel Maduro’s corrupt narco-terrorist regime”.

One of the worst “narratives” about Venezuela’s dictatorship revolves around whether the socialist hellhole is a narcostate, justifying President Trump’s emerging military buildup in the Caribbean, including Naval strikes on speedboats transferring state-produced cocaine to the U.S. If the Venezuelan state is, it’s a narcostate.

The Democrat-deep state-news media complex has been spreading the piece-by-piece narrative that they aren’t.

US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said, marking a sharp escalation in Washington’s pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro’s government.

“We have just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela – a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Releasing a video of the seizure, Attorney General Pam Bondi described the vessel as a “crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”.

🚨 BREAKING: Video has been released of US forces SEIZING CONTROL of a massive oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela

Per President Trump, this is the LARGEST tanker ship ever seized.

The DOJ and FBI believe this ship was being used to deliver sanctioned oil from Venezuela to… pic.twitter.com/VlLVIMprmO

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 10, 2025

🚨 Q: What happens to the oil on the tanker you seized near Venezuela?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We keep the oil, I guess! 🤣

Q: Where does it go?

TRUMP: You're a good news man. Just get a helicopter and go follow the tanker!

He is the best 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/Dp9duwUxT7

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 10, 2025

In the Caribbean, we should worry about what is decent and smart, not about what activists say is lawful.

nce again, the United States is using lethal force off its shores. In recent weeks, American drones and warships have sunk or disabled a string of speedboats in international waters off Venezuela. Washington says the vessels belonged to narcoterrorist networks tied to the Maduro regime and Tren de Aragua and that they were carrying cocaine and fentanyl precursors bound for the United States. At least 83 alleged traffickers and others are dead. Caracas calls this extrajudicial murder. Human-rights groups call it assassination. Cable-news panels and UN press releases are already rehearsing the same ritual question: Is this legal under international law?

You may or may not know at this time that Hugo “El Pollo (The Chicken)” Carvajal, former head of Venezuela’s General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) is currently in federal prison awaiting sentencing for drug trafficking charges. If you depend on the Elitist Media for news coverage, you DEFINITELY don’t know that he just published a bombshell allocution that lays out the Maduro regime’s long campaign against the United States.

Venezuelan president’s blanket amnesty demand for top officials is deal-breaker for Washington

Venezuela’s president asked to keep $200m of his private wealth, amnesty for his officials and safe harbour in a friendly country as part of a deal with Donald Trump to step down and flee, sources said.

Those familiar with a phone call between the two leaders told The Telegraph that the plan fell apart owing to Nicolas Maduro’s demands for a blanket amnesty for as many as 100 top officials.

During the 15-minute call, the two leaders also disagreed on how to set up a transitional government and on the location Mr Maduro would flee to from Venezuela.