Update on Operation Gideon

We are excited to share some positive news about how Airan and Luke are being treated in Venezuela! The video link is in Spanish and below is a summary of the video in English. We have had no direct contact with Airan or Luke since they’ve been held so we cannot verify if these claims are true, but we are feeling hopeful!

Sebastiana Barráez Journalist and Military Specialist discusses on the program Aló Buenas Noches how the public has doubts as to the current public narrative of what went on during Operation Gideon. Experts are questioning the reasonings of the detentions and are saying that the pretext of these detentions are likely political. The criminal justice system, as well as the military, has been utilized to apply measures contrary to persons who have been judged as being unsympathetic to the government, according to Barráez. She discusses how people are often charged without sufficient evidence with charges such as those that Luke and Airan have been charged with.

The working theory, according to journalists in the region, is that the operation was orchestrated by Maduro to entrap American forces. According to new sources the soldiers flew in on a military plane owned by a man linked to the Maduro regime—Franklin Duran. Moreover, according to the Barráez, there was individuals in the operation that were tied to the Maduro regime. Barráez states that is has become very apparent, and that she has determined, that Capitan Antonio Sequea Torres had strong ties and allegiance to the Madura regime—either for monetary or ideological reasons.

Barráez also states that she has knowledge of the conditions of those captured during the operation. She states the majority of the militants who were captured during the operation are in very poor conditions, but that Luke and Airan, along with Sequea Torres and Duran, are being held in cells away from general population in a more private area of the prison. Barráez reports Luke and Airan have been treated rather well in “privileged conditions,” given the circumstances, because, in her opinion the SEBIN (the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service) does not want to provoke an international incident or to give rise to an excuse for the United States to get involved in Venezuelan affairs.