Feds Charge Ex-Green Beret Behind Failed 2020 Operation to Oust Venezuela’s Maduro

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:27 pm

Federal prosecutors have charged a U.S. Army Green Beret veteran and a Venezuelan national with illegally exporting firearms in connection with a failed 2020 attempt to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power.

Federal authorities arrested Jordan Goudreau, the 48-year-old Green Beret veteran, in New York on July 30. He awaits transfer to Tampa, Florida. Authorities also arrested Yacsy Alexandra Alvarez, the 43-year-old Venezuelan national, on Tuesday in Florida.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida has charged both men in a conspiracy to smuggle weapons and other military gear out of the United States to aid in the May 2020 attempt to take down Maduro, known as Operation Gideon.

Both defendants are charged with smuggling goods from the United States, the attempted export of arms and ammunition, and violations of the Export Control Reform Act. They’re both also charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Goudreau also stands charged with possession of unregistered restricted firearms and parts, namely two machine guns and eight unregistered suppressors.

Prosecutors allege the two men worked together between November 2019 and March 2020 to send dozens of AR-type rifles, along with dozens of laser sights, optics, and body armor kits, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition to Colombia.

The defendants face five years in prison for conspiracy, 10 years in prison for smuggling, 20 years in prison for violations of export control laws, and 10 years in prison for each violation of the National Firearms Act and unlawful possession of a machinegun.

What We Know About The Failed 2020 Venezuela Operation

Colombia appeared to be a staging point for Operation Gideon; what the indictment described as “an armed incursion” to “remove Nicolás Maduro Moros from power.”

Operation Gideon was organized through Goudreau’s private security contracting firm, Silvercorp USA. The private security firm partnered with affiliates of Maduro’s opposition rival, Juan Guaidó, who asserted a claim to the Venezuelan presidency after the country’s May 2018 elections.

Maduro retained power after the 2018 elections but in January 2019, the Venezuelan National Assembly declared Maduro’s reelection invalid. The Venezuelan legislative body named Guaidó, its then-president, to serve as the country’s acting president. The United States officially backed Guaidó’s claim to the leadership role.

Goudreau and Silvercorp USA partnered with Guaidó’s supporters and associates throughout 2019. By June 2019, Goudreau had established connections with Venezuelan businessman Franklin Durán and a Venezuelan military defector named Clíver Alcalá Cordones.

While Goudreau grew his ties with Durán and Alcalá in the summer of 2019, Guaidó’s allies formed a Strategic Committee to weigh options to remove Maduro from power and install Guaidó in his place. Guaidó named Venezuelan political consultant J. J. Rendón to lead this Strategic Committee. This Strategic Committee began considering an armed operation to oust Maduro and pursued contacts with Goudreau and Alcalá.

According to documents published following Operation Gideon, Goudreau signed an Oct. 16, 2019 agreement with Rendón and another Guaidó ally, Venezuelan attorney Sergio Vergara, in which Silvercorp USA would help oust Maduro in for $213 million, backed by future oil profits in Venezuela. There has been some dispute over whether Guaidó signed onto the agreement as well.

Guaidó has insisted his signature on one version of the agreement was a forgery. Goudreau, by contrast, reportedly provided the Washington Post with an audio recording purporting to show Guaidó called him on Oct. 16, 2019, to affirm the plan to oust Maduro.

The Washington Post reported Goudreau had argued with Rendón about the plan in November of 2019 and that Rendón believed their disagreement put an end to the plan to oust Maduro. At any rate, Goudreau, Alcalá, Durán, and Silvercorp USA continued preparations for Operation Gideon.

On March 26, 2020, just weeks before Operation Gideon was set to launch, federal authorities named Alcalá alongside Maduro as a defendant in a narco-terrorism conspiracy to support left-wing guerillas in Colombia, known as the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). Alcalá turned himself over to Colombian authorities and was subsequently extradited to the United States.

Operation Gideon ultimately played out in failure on May 4, 2020, as Venezuelan authorities captured dozens of suspects connected to the plot to oust Maduro, including two other Green Beret veterans, Airan Berry and Luke Denman. Berry and Denman remain captive in Venezuela.

Alcalá’s attorneys requested that the U.S. government drop the narcoterrorism charges against him, arguing in a January 2022 court filing, citing his involvement in the attempt to oust Maduro.

“Evidence demonstrating General Alcalá Cordones’ hostility toward and armed rebellion against Maduro and his other alleged co-conspirators is wholly inconsistent with his participation in this alleged conspiracy. Such evidence casts doubt on the government’s theory of prosecution and, to the extent the government is able to prove such a conspiracy, would support a defense of withdrawal from any such conspiracy,” Alcalá’s attorneys wrote.

Alcalá’s attorneys added, “We have reason to believe that reports of General Alcalá Cordones’ activities were communicated at the highest levels of a number of U.S. government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, Treasury Department, the National Security Council, DEA, and DOJ.” They insisted much of the information demonstrating U.S. government knowledge in the plot to oust Maduro would likely be classified and would need to be shared with the defense under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA).

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, the judge overseeing Alcalá’s case, rejected his requests to dismiss the charges. Hellerstein also concluded the government had provided sufficient discovery, and rejected Alcalá’s requests to compel further discovery as to the government’s alleged knowledge of Alcalá’s efforts against his alleged coconspirator in the narcoterrorism case, Maduro. Alcalá ultimately pleaded guilty and took a 22-year prison sentence over the alleged narcoterrorism conspiracy.