From the Editorial
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, January 6, 2026, p. 8
Luis Quiñonez, who identifies himself as a former advisor to President Donald Trump, told the Honduran channel Televicentro HN what, according to him, was the operation in which the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, were kidnapped.
Below are their statements:
“We knew that they, the night before, had moved from a place where they had been because we saw that their servants, the people who helped them, took several (…), followed them to the Miraflores office, and people who stayed behind, who worked for them, picked up personal things, which were, obviously, suitcases and took them to the place where we grabbed them.
“And knowing that they were there, at approximately 5 in the afternoon it was confirmed that the people were in those places. The director of the command, an admiral who was there on the ship, was notified. Iwo Jima and he was told: ‘they are there, they are going to sleep there tonight.’
“So, we started up and ordered the two Inside 130 H planes, which are a model specially made for, more than anything, electromagnetic activities. They flew, what was being done for all those days was that the planes were sent, as if they were going to enter Venezuelan territory and turn around. Each time we did it three or four times a day, and they were used to seeing planes coming, at the last minute we turned around and they believed that these planes that They came were the same, they were going to turn around like they had done all these days.
“And what happened is that this time they went to the entire shore of the entire coast sending these very powerful signals, which whitened all communications (…) all the radars were turned off, all the communication towers at the airport were turned off and, at that moment, when it was confirmed that they were turned off, an F-35 entered with a missile, which destroyed one of the main antennas, which destroyed one of the antennas that was on the main hill that overlooks Caracas.
“We destroyed it and the F-18s came in behind to bomb all the points. We had identified 412 important points to destroy, but that time we did not attack all of them, only about 16 were attacked, and it was so effective, and so fast, that when the F-35s entered, the Delta Force special forces helicopters, which are from Georgia, stationed there, immediately flew over the mountain, very low (…) to avoid detection.
“When I saw a video, and I saw the back of the helicopter, I knew that they were from an extraction operation, since those helicopters are only used by the special armed forces, and they arrived, they immediately recognized (…) Those who were defending Maduro, where they were staying, where Chávez is buried, they did put up a good fight, they defended themselves.”
They used anti-aircraft shrapnel and damaged a helicopter
Quiñonez continued with the story: “There was a huge shootout, thank goodness we had attack helicopters, which were able to neutralize them quickly, but one of the anti-aircraft systems they use, a 30-millimeter anti-aircraft shrapnel, was able to damage one of the helicopters, which managed to leave the area. It had to make a forced landing (…) there were six of the Delta Force, the helicopter fell very hard, but they did not destroy it, and it managed to get out on his own and barely reached the neighboring country, where he had to be taken out with a crane (…)
“The Delta Force managed to get in (…) We built some places that were identical to where they were staying, that is, to know that here is a corridor, here is a room, here is a room, and they knew exactly where they were going. It was so fast that Maduro and his wife were sleeping in a part quite far from the entrance where a bunker was (…)
“They built about six in various houses where they moved. They put those doors that look like banks, which are approximately 12 inches thick (…) The problem that (…) he had is that that door is so strong that to open it you need a lot of strength (…).
“It was difficult for him, he got in. His wife went into the security room, but when he was trying to close the door, it was so heavy that one of the officers who was in front of the assault group managed to grab it. There they captured him.”
–Were there people around Nicolás Maduro who delivered it, who contributed?
-No. There were people who had been participating in saying that he was moving from point to point (…) We must give credit to the intelligence members of the Central Intelligence Agency, who followed him, chased him, were looking for him, were checking every point where he went (…) They did an excellent job to maintain control of where he was.
