The regime of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela is imprisoning at least 31 unjustly detained foreign nationals under conditions of forced disappearance, the Argentine outlet Infobae reported on Sunday.
As of last week, statistical information documented by the Venezuelan non-government organization Foro Penal indicates that the Maduro regime is holding 890 known political prisoners, 72 of which are foreign nationals. Foro Penal noted that, of the total, there are 68 political prisoners whose whereabouts remain unknown.
Infobae, upon conducting a case-by-case review of the cases cited in a new annual report from the CASLA Institute recently published by the Organization of American States (OAS), stated that there is a tentative list of 31 foreign political prisoners in Venezuela whose whereabouts remain unknown who are subjected to conditions of forced disappearance across the regime’s detention centers. Infobae pointed out that the list is not “definitive,” asserting that Maduro holds other unidentified foreign nationals in various clandestine detention centers.
“Donald Trump, Gustavo Petro, Javier Milei, Giorgia Meloni, Pedro Sánchez, and Benjamin Netanyahu, among other global leaders, have demanded the release of their citizens illegally imprisoned by the Caribbean regime,” Infobae’s report read.
“But Maduro rejects the claims of the United States, Colombia, Argentina, Italy, Spain, and Israel, alleges a worldwide conspiracy against him, does not reveal the places of detention of the 31 disappeared, and accelerates his trials without providing a single legal and reliable proof,” the report continued.
The list of foreign political prisoners includes 37-year-old U.S. Navy Seal member Wilbert Joseph Castañeda, who was unjustly detained in September, and 33-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran Joseph Saint Claire, who was unjustly detained in November.
Castañeda’s brother, Christian Castañeda, reportedly stated in early May that his family has not heard from him since he called right after he was arrested to let them know he was in trouble. Saint Clair’s parents denounced that their son was traveling as a tourist near the Venezuelan border in October 2024 when he and a friend from Colombia were arrested by Venezuelan authorities, who transported them across the border to a Venezuelan prison.
Other Americans whose whereabouts are marked as unknown in CASLA’s report include 37-year-old Lucas Hunter, who remains missing since early January after he was detained by Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard at a border checkpoint while visiting Colombia. Jorge Marcelo Vargas and Jonathan Pagan González were detained in October and accused of being part of a broader “mercenary group” allegedly linked to the CIA and Spain’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI) that sought to plot against Maduro. Additionally, the whereabouts of Uruguayan national Fabián Buglione Reyes, who reportedly legally resides in the United States since 2001, is marked as unknown.
Infobae also referred to the case of Italian humanitarian worker Alberto Trentini, who was detained in late 2024 and remained under conditions of forced disappearance for roughly six months until last week, when the Maduro regime allowed him to call his family for the first time. Infobae asserted that the Maduro regime “whitewashed his illegal detention, but denied his immediate release.”
“In this context, the international community is converging as a bloc on Maduro to obtain the release of 31 foreign political prisoners, but in terms of tactical negotiation, each government applies different diplomatic resources,” the report read.
Infobae stated that President Donald Trump has already proven to Maduro that he “can enter Venezuela and exercise his global power,” referencing the recent operation that resulted in the successful rescue of five Venezuelan dissidents trapped in the shut down Argentine embassy in Caracas since March 2024. The rescue operation has been dubbed by Venezuelan and international media as Operation Guacamaya (“Macaw”) in reference to the bird species that inhabits Caracas.
“From this perspective, the Republican administration warned Maduro that it will retaliate if he does not release 11 political prisoners that it considers a national priority. Among them are an Israeli citizen and Nahuel Gallo, who is an Argentine gendarme,” Infobae stated in its report.
Infobae noted that Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia is the country with the largest number of citizens subjected to forced disappearance by the Maduro regime, stressing far-left President Gustavo Petro and Maduro’s “good personal relationship” and coincidences in their “ideological view of the world.”
“However, Maduro is reluctant to the request for freedom that Petro, time and again, presents in favor of his citizens,” Infobae said. “The negative response of the dictator, in the face of an obvious regional ally, reveals his strategy: foreign political prisoners are just a bargaining chip for an isolated regime in constant social and economic crisis.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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