Overview
- Associated Press reporting details how HSI agent Edwin López courted Maduro’s chief pilot, Bitner Villegas, offering money and a new life to divert a presidential jet to a location where U.S. forces could detain the Venezuelan leader.
- Villegas refused the approach and later reappeared publicly, while anonymous U.S. officials concede the contacts occurred but characterize them as López’s personal initiative rather than an authorized mission.
- Caracas denounces the recruitment attempt as an act of kidnapping and state terrorism and formally demands an explanation from Washington.
- Separately, the Pentagon says a U.S. strike in the eastern Pacific on Wednesday destroyed a suspected drug boat and killed four, bringing the campaign to roughly 15 vessels destroyed and at least 61 deaths since September.
- Regional leaders and legal experts question the legality and evidentiary basis of the maritime attacks, as the Trump administration casts the effort as a fight against “narco-terrorists” and has floated the possibility of future strikes on land.