January 3, 2026 will go down in history as the date of an unprecedented military operation : the United States captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and transferred him to New York to stand trial. This coup, hailed by some as the end of an authoritarian regime and denounced by others as a violation of international law, has propelled Venezuela into the heart of a global geopolitical crisis.
A few days ago, the US military operation dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve targeted several strategic sites in northern Venezuela, including the capital Caracas. Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were captured by US special forces, who then exfiltrated the presidential couple out of the country and took them to the United States.
Once in New York, Maduro appeared before a federal court, where he pleaded not guilty to charges of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and possession of heavy weapons. He and his family are currently being held without bail.
Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president since 2018, has been proclaimed interim president, but the real authority of this government remains unstable given the country’s current fragility.
The reasons behind a daring operation
Succeeding Hugo Chávez as Venezuela’s leader in 2013, Nicolás Maduro inherited a country still shaped by the Bolivarian revolution but already facing deep divisions. Although rich in oil, the country was already plunging into a deep crisis before the events of January 3 : economic mismanagement, inflation, insecurity, collapse of public services, etc. Maduro plunged the country into chaos, continuing a political trajectory marked by the affirmation of an anti-American model that had begun under his predecessor.
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