Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello at a press conference on February 13, 2025. Photo: Con el Mazo Dando.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello reported the successful dismantling of “Operation Gold,” a terrorist plot in which extremist mercenaries had planned to plant explosives in a helicopter at Fort Tavacare in Barinas, kidnap Judge Maikel Moreno to take him to the US, and attack Fort Conopoima in Guárico state. All of these operations were set to occur before January 10, the day of President Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration.
Cabello reported about the terrorist plot at a press conference held on Thursday, February 13. He also referred to “Operation Aurora,” another terrorist plot in which extremist opposition groups attacked military bases in 2019. That attack also failed, and the people involved had fled to Colombia.
In December 2024, intelligence agencies reported that one of those individuals, named Damián Alexander Rojas Díaz (alias “Weiwei”) had returned to a community in Lara. He is known to have been involved in other terrorist plots, according to the authorities.
Cabello posted a video of Rojas Díaz talking about Operation Aurora, in which he had participated, indicating that his intention was to take over Bolívar state in 2019. The group had been apprehended by a commission of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB); thereafter they fled to Brazil and were then transported to a safe place by a Brazilian Army Blackhawk helicopter. Rojas Díaz claimed that the Brazilian authorities investigated them and they were told that they had to leave Brazil.
“Brazil knew what was happening in Venezuela back in 2019,” said Cabello. He added that the terrorists never left Brazil, and that then-President Jair Bolsonaro knew about this and supported them.
Rojas Díaz returned to Venezuela in December 2024, taking advantage of the fact that no one knew him in Lara, in order to participate in a new operation—planting explosives in a military fort in the state of Guárico.
Cabello explained that the Venezuelan authorities have investigated spokespersons and supporters of Operation Aurora on social media and in the media. He posted a video of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (host of far-right TV shows) talking about a mercenary named Matthew VanDyke, founder of a “contractor” company called Brothers of Liberty, which has worked in mercenary actions in numerous countries, in the “Arab Spring,” in the Libyan and Syrian wars and other conflicts.
Miguel Ángel Rodríguez said that VanDyke has claimed on social media that he “has been working with a rebel commander” in Venezuela in the Operation Aurora.
Cabello highlighted that USAID funds were used in Operation Aurora, and that it was the USAID that later created Operation Gold named after Óscar Pérez and Ronald Ojeda, using their acronyms (ORO) in Spanish.
Attack on Fort Conopoima
Cabello stated that in December 2024 there were reports on social media that Fort Conopoima in Guárico state was going to be attacked. He said that, thanks to the pulic discourse and publications of far-right influencers and associates of the terrorists, who gave Venezuelan authorities the keys, several people were arrested, Rojas Díaz among them.
Another influencer, know as “El Fama,” a deserter lieutenant “discharged from the GNB for being a thief, ”said Cabello, and who is now in the United States, showed in a video on social media some explosive devices, detonators, C4, and some photos supposedly of the Conopoima Fort. Cabello added that El Fama is one of the public spokespersons for Operation Gold.
Cabello showed another video from the influencer “soyWenderEnrique,” who is also in the US. In the video he posted an audio of someone called “Russian lieutenant of Operation Aurora.” The influencer said in the video that the “Russian lieutenant” carried out an operation in San Juan de los Morros (Guárico state) as part of Operation Gold. “They completed the operation and made their killing,” said the influencer, and showed a confusing video with sound, which is the supposed proof that the operation (the explosion) was carried out.
“The video evidence is for payment, so that they get paid,” Cabello said.
Cabello also showed another video by Norbey Marín, who has a program on El Venezolano TV (EVTV, based in Miami), in which he claimed that “a large group of civilians, police, active and non-active military personnel” attacked Fort Conopoima. “I received these images directly from them and it is totally real.” Marín said that a device was brought into the fort and detonated four kilometers away.
“When we captured Rojas Díaz, they got nervous,” Cabello said, “and they started saying on social media that certain people were missing. We located them and arrested them.”
“Nothing happened in Conopoima,” the minister continued. “The terrorists have information that we have all the arsenals in that fort. That was five years ago. Since then we have distributed the arsenals in various places, they have no idea where they are.”
However, Cabello questioned what the intention of placing explosives in a military installation in a city was. If there had been an arsenal there, an explosion would have caused a large number of casualties. “We are talking about murderers who do not care about anything or anyone, only the desire for money,” he stressed.
Minister Cabello added that more people were captured (alias Fénix, alias Espartano, and people linked with logistics). In a house in El Valle, Caracas, a large quantity of weapons, grenades, and devices to detonate explosives were found, Cabello said, showing them on television.
“In Conopoima they left something far from where it was supposed to be, and Rojas Díaz went to Valencia,” he added.
Cabello showed another video of Rojas Díaz, who confessed that he was going to be paid $2,500 for an action. He traveled to La Encrucijada where he met “Berlín,” another ploter. They took public transport to San Juan de los Morros where they met El Tío and Espartano, who gave them tools and explosives. He confessed that he entered military territory, planted an explosive device in some military deposits at Fort Conopoima, and they went to the back of the fort.
The timer gave them three hours. “He had to provide the recording of what happened, but he could not provide it because nothing happened,” Cabello explained. “They lied to turn a failure into a success.”
Plan to blow up a military helicopter in Barinas
The terrorists then went to Fort Tavacare in Barinas state, where they were going to place C4 explosives on a helicopter. The explosives were supplied by a Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) agent who was also captured.
Cabello pointed out that opposition supporters spoke on social media, prior to January 10, the day of Nicolás Maduro’s swearing-in as president, of “a light in the sky” that was going to be “a sign.” That sign was going to be the explosion of the helicopter, a terrorist act.
He added that even María Corina Machado, in a speech during those days, asked her supporters to wait for a “sign in the sky.”
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Abduction of Judge Maikel Moreno
After January 6, the terrorists were going to embark on another mission: the abduction of Judge Maikel Moreno, former president of the Supreme Court of Justice. However, the plot had been leaked, and the judge was given special protection on President Maduro’s instructions. There were two people who had infiltrated Moreno’s security team; they were arrested and they confessed that they were going to be paid $300,000 for the abduction.
Cabello showed a video of the confession of El Espartano (Wilfredo José Díaz Montoya), confessing that he was going to participate in the abduction of Judge Moreno, for which he was going to be paid.
The terrorist said that, once the kidnapping would be carried out, a helicopter would be waiting for them to later board a boat in international waters of the Caribbean, to directly transfer everyone on board and the kidnapped person (Maikel Moreno) to the United States.
Justice Moreno was going to be kidnapped at a checkpoint, by someone disguised as a Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) officer, and taken to a boat (the boatmen who were going to take him have already been arrested, Cabello said). From there, he was to be put on a larger boat and taken away. “US officials were involved,” Cabello added.
Cabello showed another video of another detainee, who also confessed that he received the explosives and materials, traveled to Barinas state and gave the explosives and detonators to Espartano, who prepared the explosive, and gave it to Rojas Díaz to carry out the operation. He said that he entered the Tavacare fort, but he could not place the explosive because there were many service personnel in the area where the helicopters were. Cabello added that “their phones were confiscated and the whole history is there.”
“These terrorists, these murderers, do not rest,” stressed Cabello. However, because they were amateurs, they were very inept. He showed images of all those captured in relation to this terrorist plot.
The minister added that Venezuela alerted several governments in the region, including Brazil (under Jair Bolsonaro) and Peru, where some of these terrorists took refuge, but none of those governments did anything about it. Until recently, the governments of these countries were part of the now defunct Lima Group whose aim was to carry out a “regime change” in Venezuela.
Cabello reiterated that all those involved in this plan have been captured and that the operation has been dismantled thanks to the information obtained and the evidence gathered. “Terrorism will have no place in Venezuela,” he emphasized.
Nicolás Maduros’ inauguration
Cabello pointed that Operation Gold was to take place in early January, in the context of the enormous media pressure created by María Corina Machado and other far-right political leaders in the days leading up to the inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro on January 10, when everyone was saying that “something was going to happen.”
“The investigation continues and we know that it will produce excellent results,” Cabello said.
(Alba Ciudad) by Luigino Bracci Roa
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SC
Luigino Bracci
He is passionate about computer science since he was about 14 years old, at that age “a man gave me a small computer that he had bought in the eighties, of those that were connected to a television and had to be programmed to work (a Sinclair ZX81 ), and I really liked it.” On his political inclination, his parents were a great influence. “They were people of very humble origins, both emigrants, dissatisfied with injustice and inequality. But they were not militants of the left. I had many other influences, classmates in HS whose parents were on the left, as well as several teachers who were trained in the Pedagogical and gave us classes at a time as conflictive as it was the presidency of CAP and the military insurrection of Chávez ” He enrolled in the UCV and in 2006 he graduated in Computing, a career that he complements with popular communication in the digital field.
