Venezuelan Interior Minister and wanted drug lord Diosdado Cabello on Wednesday denied that the five Venezuelan dissidents trapped in the shut-down Argentine embassy in Caracas were rescued and instead claimed they were released as part of a “negotiation” with opposition leader María Corina Machado.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday that a “precise operation” led to the rescue and arrival on U.S. soil of five persecuted Venezuelan dissidents, part of opposition leader María Corina Machado’s team. Although Secretary Rubio did not publicly disclose details of the rescue operation, “unobjectionable sources” confirmed to the Argentine outlet Infobae that “it was a military operation commanded from the United States.”
Cabello, during the latest episode of his weekly talk show Hitting with the Mallet, accused Secretary Rubio of “sabotaging” purported “talks” between the United States and Venezuela and claimed that the White House “does not back Rubio’s actions.” Cabello also denied that there was a rescue operation in Caracas as announced by Rubio.
Cabello, wanted internationally on accusations of drug trafficking, justified his assertions against Rubio by reading from a supposed letter sent by a “cooperating patriot.” “Cooperating patriot” is a socialist term used by dictator Nicolás Maduro, Cabello, and others to refer to spies, whistleblowers, and regime loyalists — inside or outside of Venezuela — who defend the Maduro regime, expose “counter-revolutionary” individuals to socialist party officials, or pass on information to Cabello and others.
Although the practice is illegal in Venezuela, Cabello makes extensive use of reports from “cooperating patriots” to attack individuals and make false assertions on his TV show. In some cases, Cabello uses the “reports” to justify persecution against dissidents. Cabello claimed that the letter he read came from a “cooperating patriot in the United States.”
“Marco Rubio is sabotaging the agreements being woven between the White House and Miraflores,” Cabello said, reading from the purported letter. Miraflores is the presidential palace in Caracas. “I’m telling you, we at the White House do not support how Marco Rubio is acting. Assuming the show of strategy and extraction were true, in his message he is confessing to a crime with serious repercussions for the Trump administration.”
Cabello, further reading from the “letter,” asserted that in the United States, Machado’s influence remains “restricted to a specific sector headed by Rubio.”
“That is to say, she only counts on a single sector of the state, which constantly contradicts the White House. Trump already knows that Rubio wants to be taken out of the game,” Cabello claimed. He did not clarify how support from Rubio would mean only a “single sector” of the government supports the Venezuelan opposition, as Rubio holds multiple high-level positions in the administration of President Donald Trump.
According to Cabello, there was no rescue mission. Instead, the dissidents left Venezuela as a result of negotiations between the Maduro regime and Machado, which included the departure of Machado’s mother Corina Parisca from Venezuela.
“Now the lady [Machado] says it was an impeccable operation. Impeccable my ass, if the first thing she asked for was for her mother,” Cabello said. “The lady is going to be put in a nursing home, because she doesn’t want to have her. And we even made contact with the [elderly people’s] asylum for her.”
Hours before Cabello issued his claims, Argentine presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni denied that there was any negotiation with the Maduro regime for the release of the dissidents and explained that the rescue of the five Venezuelans from the Argentine Embassy in Caracas was the result of months of work that began with the start of President Donald Trump’s new term.
Adorni, on behalf of President Javier Milei, thanked the United States, President Trump, and Secretary Rubio for the successful operation, stressing that the Argentine government will continue working towards the liberation of Nahuel Gallo, an Argentine national unjustly detained by the Maduro regime in December.
“For us, their freedom is a priority and we continue to work in the utmost confidentiality because of the risks inherent in a kidnapping,” Adorni said. “As we have done with this extraction, which began to work with the beginning of the Trump era and only now the results are known.”
The rescued Venezuelan dissidents were among a larger group of politicians, activists, journalists, and civilians hunted by Nicolás Maduro’s “Bolivarian Fury” persecution campaign. The group sought shelter in the Argentine embassy in March 2024 after the Venezuelan regime issued arrest warrants, and remained trapped for 14 months due to Maduro’s refusal to grant them safe passage out of the country.
The Argentine embassy has remained under Brazilian custody since August after Maduro unilaterally cut ties with Argentina and several other Latin American countries that refused to recognize his “victory” in the fraudulent July 28, 2024, presidential election. The Brazilian government announced on Wednesday that it made numerous high-level contacts requesting safe passage for the dissidents, but that its repeated efforts “were not accepted” by the Maduro regime.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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