Diosdado Cabello, Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, reported that another American citizen linked to a conspiracy plan against the nation was arrested. “We were following him, he took photos of military units, power stations and state entities, using the excuse of being a tourist,” he said during his speech at the plenary session of the National Assembly on Tuesday, where he was invited to present the progress of the investigation.
Following the alert about a terrorist plan with the use of grenades and explosives in the country, an investigation was carried out that led to the capture of three citizens.
Cabello said that the three previously detained people, whom they have tried to call “tourists,” are being held in a safe place. “We respect human rights,” he added.
He also reported that the detained individuals are related to groups of “ladies of company” who are related to gangs associated with members of the defunct Tren de Aragua.
Cabello added that they have obtained information from the detainees, who have confessed that the Spanish National Intelligence Center (CNI) hires mercenaries and those mercenaries are in Venezuela. They already had defined tasks, one of which was to take over the Maiquetía Airport.
He said that the subjects linked to these cases have the alibi of being “tourists” and that the leader of the operation is Wilberth Joseph Castañeda. “The White House spokesman recently acknowledged that Joseph Castaneda Gomez He is an active United States military officer, who was trained to carry out missions exclusively in Latin America and who is, in fact, detained here in Venezuela,” Cabello said.
Castañeda has been a member of the Navy Seal of the United States, the main special operations force of the Navy of that country. He is a trained individual, he took a course in Virginia (USA) in group No. 4 with the specialty of explosives expert. Then he was transferred to group No. 7 in San Diego (California), which is the elite group, their special group. He took the course in river operations, mixed weapons, pistol and rifle, urban and close combat, parachuting, rural combat, explosives, offensive and defensive handling, and explosives. He was in the war in Afghanistan in 2010, and in 2014 he was in the war in Iraq for 6 months.
Cabello reported that in 2021, Wilbert Joseph Castañeda traveled to Colombia where he made contact with a woman named Deisy Jugles González, who was the partner of “a very high-level man from the Aragua Train who was murdered in Colombia.”
In that country they contact Belén Salas, María Teresa Clavijo, Carlos Andrade, alias Petare, alias El Flaco, “all belonging to criminal gangs and groups”, with the aim of recruiting people to form a group to commit terrorist acts in Venezuela.
The terrorist plan involved hiring prisoners, to whom some of the 400 confiscated rifles were to be delivered. In total, they had already contacted 14 prisoners. Three of them are shown in the photo.
“Are the CIA and the DEA behind all this? The Pentagon?” Cabello asked.
“They accuse us of attacking a supposedly innocent child? He is not an innocent child. Jorge Rodriguez explained Operation Gedeon in detail, including the coordinates, the camps, who was leading them, and they said it was all a lie. We even gave the initials of the person who was going to lead it, Jordan Goudreau, and they disdained him. But we are obliged to defend our country and our sovereignty and nothing will stop us,” he said.
“They want to lead Venezuela into a non-state. This is not just a problem of Chavismo, it concerns us as Venezuelans. We are working to guarantee peace for everyone.
Cabello accused Iván Simonovis of being responsible for the mobilization of all the weapons.
