The director of the Colombian Police, Óscar Aterhotúa, indicated that after five months of investigations, four Venezuelans were detained in Colombian territory for “trying to carry out training for illegal activities.” The detainees are involved in the Operation Gideon that sought a political and social destabilization in Venezuela.
Those captured were identified as Rayder Alexander Russo Márquez, Yacsy Alexandra Álvarez Mirabal, Juvenal Sequea Torres and Juven José Sequea Torres; three of them linked to Operation Gideon in Venezuela.
The objective of this operation was to plan the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, to assassinate senior officials of the Executive branch and carry out destabilizing actions in the South American country, through armed sea and land incursions.
The arrests of Venezuelan citizens were carried out in the cities of Bogotá and Barranquilla by an elite body made up of officials from the Attorney General’s Office, the Police, Army and Migration of Colombia.
The Colombian authorities indicated that they had the support of the United States national security investigation office, and the Federal Investigation Agency (FBI) to carry out the arrest.
For his part, President Iván Duque, when pronouncing on the incident, classified those captured as “criminals financed by the Venezuelan president” and indicated that they were in the country “trying to structure destabilization activities”.
Response from Venezuela:
From Venezuela, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, described as “impudence” the attitude of the Colombian president before the capture of the four Venezuelan citizens, passing over the fact that they are “mercenary deserters” on which the Venezuelan Government offered information for their capture.
“Such an impudence by Iván Duque,” wrote the head of Venezuelan diplomacy in his account on the Twitter social network, and noted that the Government of Venezuela has been willing to collaborate with Colombia in the investigation of terrorist events.
For 2018, Minister Arreaza made public the will of the Venezuelan authorities to collaborate with the Government of Colombia in the investigation into the participation of three Venezuelan citizens in an alleged assassination against Duque.
At that time, Arreaza requested that police cooperation between the two nations would also serve to capture in Colombian territory those responsible for the failed attack against the president, Nicolás Maduro, on August 4, 2018.
However, on more than one occasion, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said the Government of Colombia ignored the intentions of Venezuela and, in turn, did not take any actions against the alleged culprits of the fact that endangered the life of the Venezuelan president.
“Now it turns out that the mercenary Venezuelan deserters were going to destabilize Colombia. For two years we gave them accurate information on terrorist operations and they never lifted a finger. They protected them. And that’s how they pay those traitors”, said Arreaza during the journey.
Who are the four detained Venezuelans?
Juvenal Sequea Torres and Juven José Sequea Torres are deserters from the Bolivarian National Guard who participated in the coup actions of April 30, 2019 in Venezuela, in the face of a failed call for a military uprising carried out by the oppositionist Juan Guaidó.
Antonio José, the younger of the aforementioned brothers and a former member of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), participated directly in the escape of Leopoldo López and his attempted coup d’ etat. He is currently detained in Caracas for having been part of the attempted armed incursion at the beginning of May this year.
Rayder Alexander Russo Márquez, a.k.a. “Teniente Pico”, is accused by the Venezuelan Government of having been one of the intellectual authors of the attack against President Nicolás Maduro in August 2018, with explosive devices put on two drones.
According to a version released by the press, Russo, Juvenal and Juven Sequea Torres lived for several months in rudimentary camps located on the Colombian Caribbean coast in order to participate in Operation Gideon.
For her part, Yacsi Alexandra Álvarez, 39, is “the organization’s intelligence and logistics coordinator” and, in addition, the trusted person of Cliver Alcalá, who ended up surrendering himself to the US authorities.
The arrest report released by Colombian media assures that the military uniforms worn by the participants of Operation Gedeón were bought by Álvarez in Bogotá.
“She arrived in Colombia, through Barranquilla, on a private flight on January 16 with the three Americans, Jordan Guy Goudreau (fugitive), Airan Seth Berry and Luke Alexander Denman (captured by Venezuelan authorities)”, as indicates the text.
In addition, Álvarez is the sentimental partner of the owner of a private security company that has been used “for the purchase of weapons and the recruitment of former Venezuelan military personnel”.
In the United States, these four Venezuelans are also charged with the crimes of manufacturing, trafficking and carrying of weapons, use of restricted-use ammunition for the exclusive use of the Armed Forces, and training for illegal activities.
