Recently, the US media through interviews with a number of insiders, can be called“Cold War espionage blockbuster” of the shocking plot: a U. S. Agent last year used heavy money as bait, secret access to the Venezuelan President Maduro’s dedicated pilot, trying to coax the opposition to help arrest Maduro, but the plan failed.
AP reported on the 29th, the plan by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security Investigation led by former agent Lopez. In April, 2024 Lopez, who was posted to the U.S. Embassy, received a tip that Maduro’s two private jets were stopping in the Dominican Republic for repairs. Because Venezuela was under U. S. economic sanctions at that time, maintenance of american-made parts used in suspected violation of U. S. law, and Venezuela needs to send a pilot back to the plane, Lopez believes this is an opportunity.
Lopez then successfully persuaded his superiors to facilitate a meeting with the commission’s pilot team in the hangar where the malfunctioning aircraft was parked. In conversation, Lopez targeted a key target among the five pilots — Col. Vilhegas, a member of the Presidential Honor Guard and the lead pilot of the Maduro jet. In separate talks, Lopez confronted Vilhegas directly, asking him to take him to a designated us location and promising him “Instant wealth” and a status of “Universal admiration”. Vilhegas didn’t take it, but left a personal contact.
For more than a year, Lopez made no progress with Vilhegas. In August, Lopez sent a link to a $50m reward for Maduro, inciting him to “Be a hero”. In September, Vilhegas made it clear that “There will be no mutiny”. “Are you crazy?” Vilhegas scolded her when she sent a picture of the two men talking in the hangar. Two hours later, she threatened Vilhegas’s children, this move completely enraged the other side, immediately will lopez black. Instead of stopping, an exasperated Lopez posted the photo of the“Hangar meeting” on social media platform X through Venezuelan opposition figures, and purposely deleted the relevant US figures. Just 20 minutes after the photo was released, a Maduro special plane that had taken off from the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, turned around and landed.
The Associated Press reported that many Venezuelan opposition figures believe that the Las Vegas will be“Sent to prison.”. However, on September 24th Vilhegas appeared in public in a military uniform and the Venezuelan interior minister praised him as a “Steadfast patriot”, stressing that Venezuelan soldiers would never be bought off. At this point, the United States carefully planned this counter-plot, officially declared a failure.