The capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro by US forces and the killing of 32 Cubans in an operation to protect him has dealt a major blow to the island’s venerable intelligence service, experts say.
Fearing betrayal by Venezuelan rebels, the leftist Maduro – like his late mentor Hugo Chavez – sourced his security details in communist-ruled Cuba.
But after the Cubans pounded Venezuela’s air defenses with US jets, it proved little to US special forces sent in by helicopter to oust Maduro from the military compound.
Of the 32 Cubans killed — including 23 Venezuelan soldiers — 21 were from the Cuban Interior Ministry, which oversees intelligence services, officials said.
The remaining 11 were from the Cuban military.
Experts consulted by AFP agreed that the key to the seamless execution of the US operation – carefully prepared for months, in complete secrecy – was the element of surprise.
But former Venezuelan military officer José Gustavo Arocha of the Center for a Secure Free Society, a US think tank specializing in defense issues, also suggested that Cuba had misjudged the threat.
Cuban intelligence “convinced the Maduro regime and its security agencies that the United States would never invade Venezuelan territory,” Arocha said.
Former US intelligence officer Fulton Armstrong, now a Latin America researcher at the American University in Washington, also pointed to intelligence failures.
Chief among them, he said, was the failure to anticipate the attack and then detect the helicopter that had entered Venezuelan airspace.
“Even five or 10 minutes of warning would have made a big difference for the guards and for Maduro,” the former CIA agent said.
However, US forces had a major advantage in the form of stealth drones, which are used to monitor the movements of the Venezuelan leader in real time, as well as more advanced weapons and combat gear.
Paul Hare, former British ambassador to Cuba and Venezuela, argued that Cuban intelligence underestimated US access to “inside support in Venezuela” – an informant inside Maduro’s camp.
Citing sources close to the operation, The New York Times reported that a CIA source inside the Venezuelan government disclosed Maduro’s location.
The US offered a $50 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
– Aura of Invincibility –
For decades, the Cuban secret service, trained during the Soviet era by the KGB, enjoyed a reputation for invincibility.
In addition to thwarting nearly 600 assassination attempts against the late leader Fidel Castro, Cuba was renowned for its ability to infiltrate foreign intelligence services and recruit high-ranking informants, particularly Americans.
The most recent case to come to light was that of Victor Manuel Rocha, a former US diplomat sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2024 after more than four decades of working for the Cuban state.
But Cuba “hasn’t read the Trump administration enough,” Arrocha said, adding that the administration’s national security strategy in December clearly spelled out Trump’s goal of asserting U.S. dominance in Latin America.
Washington has regularly denounced Cuba’s role in Venezuela’s security apparatus since 2000.
A regular response from Caracas and Havana was that Cuba provided its ally with doctors and humanitarian workers in exchange for Venezuelan oil supplies.
Arocha argued that “so many years… successfully doing the same thing” blinded Cubans to Trump’s diplomacy and willingness to flout international law, so they didn’t see him coming.
The Republican leader shocked the world by ordering the arrest of Venezuela’s president in what his administration said was a law enforcement operation that did not require authorization from Congress.
“All the capabilities of Cuban intelligence were blocked for the first time in the region… because their traditional methods became irrelevant against this new decision-making style,” Arocha said.
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