Three Americans, as well as two Spaniards and a Czech citizen, were arrested after Venezuelan officials accused them of coming to the country with a plot to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro.
The arrests were announced on state television by the nation’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, who said the foreign citizens were part of a CIA-led plot to overthrow the Venezuelan government and kill several members of its leadership. In the television program, Cabello showed images of rifles that he said were confiscated from some of the plotters of the alleged plan.
The three American citizens included a Navy SEAL, identified as Wilbert Joseph Castañeda Gomez, who had served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia and was detained in Venezuela. The U.S. State Department late Saturday confirmed the detention of a U.S. military member and said it was aware of “unconfirmed reports of two additional U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela. Any claims of U.S. involvement in a plot to overthrow Maduro are categorically false. The United States continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela.”
The arrests come just two days after the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on 16 allies of Maduro who were accused by the U.S. government of obstructing voting during Venezuela’s disputed July 28 presidential election, which the country’s opposition accuses Maduro of stealing.
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