On Sunday 3 May, the government of Nicolas Maduro announced Venezuela's armed forces had repelled an armed incursion. Operation Gideon was a deeply flawed coup attempt. But what would compel exiled Venezuelans and former US Special Forces soldiers to join a plan that, from the outset, looked like a suicide mission?
It is a story that leaps straight out of a 20th Century playbook of Latin American conspiracies.
"It made the Bay of Pigs look like D-Day," quipped one commentator, referring to the failed US-financed invasion of Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1961. Operation Gideon is a staggering tale of hubris, incompetence and treachery. Eight men were killed by Venezuela's armed forces off the coastal town of Macuto. Dozens of others were captured and remain in jail in Caracas. Less than a handful escaped. And coinciding with the height of the coronavirus pandemic, it has attracted less attention outside the Americas than it otherwise might have done.
At the heart of the failed mission was a former US Special Forces soldier, Jordan Goudreau. Medic, marksman, veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq and recipient of three Bronze Star medals, Goudreau was way out of his depth.
"A daring amphibious raid was launched from the border of Colombia," he intoned, in a widely distributed video published hours after it began. "Our men are continuing to fight right now… Our units have been activated in the south, west and east of Venezuela."
This was not true. Some supporters in Venezuela may have been tipped off, but Operation Gideon - named after a Biblical character who triumphed over a much larger army - consisted of fewer than 60 poorly armed men and one woman. And in reality the operation had already descended into bloody chaos.
In 2018, Jordan Goudreau founded Silvercorp USA, a private security contractor. Its Instagram account is a mix of images of military prowess and Goudreau sprinting fast on a running machine.
In February 2019, he was hired to provide security for a Richard Branson-sponsored gig on the Colombian side of the Venezuelan border. The purpose of the concert was to pressure Nicolas Maduro into allowing humanitarian aid into Venezuela, where an economy in freefall, violence, hunger and the collapse of basic services had forced millions into exile in Colombia.
"Controlling chaos on the Venezuela border where a dictator looks on with apprehension," is the caption Goudreau wrote on the video he uploaded to the Silvercorp Instagram account. By "dictator" he meant Nicolas Maduro.
The month before the concert in Caracas, Juan Guaido had declared himself the interim President of Venezuela. In a direct challenge to Nicolas Maduro, more than 50 nations recognised him, including the US.
Guaido had hoped the aid convoy championed by the Branson gig would help to sweep him to power, but it was blocked at the border, amid violent scenes. An attempted rebellion at the end of April also came to nothing. So Guaido's supporters began to consider removing Maduro in a surgical military operation.
The first training camp was set up in the Colombian city of Maicao in June.
"We had men getting fit, gaining knowledge. But we had a lot of economic difficulties - sometimes we could only afford to provide two meals a day, not three," an exiled member of the Venezuelan parliament, Hernan Aleman, told the BBC before his death from Covid-19 earlier this month.
"We collected money where we could - I sold my car and my apartment."
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