Claim: A photo shows US soldiers getting off a military helicopter at a building during a raid to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Fact: The viral image is originally from a video showing a US Special Operations Forces’ demonstration at Fort Bragg in North Carolina on 10 June 2025.
On 4 January 2026, columnist Mehtab Aziz posted a photo of United States Army soldiers getting off a military helicopter to raid a building in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, suggesting this is where the former President Nicolas Maduro was captured.
The photo is part of Aziz’s Facebook post in which he provides an analysis of US forces capturing Maduro in a midnight raid in the capital Caracas on 3 January 2025 and compares it to an operation in Pakistan’s Abbottabad that had targeted al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in May 2011. The same was also published by Indus Broadcast & Communication (IBC) Urdu on 6 January.
Soch Fact Check is only investigating the viral image, not the write-up by the columnist as opinions and analyses do not come under the purview of our fact-checking.
Midnight raid in Venezuela
In the wee hours of 3 January 2026, the US attacked and bombed Venezuela before abducting Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, during “Operation Absolute Resolve,” which President Donald Trump termed one of the “most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might”. The Congress was neither informed nor consulted about the “regime change”.
US spies were tracking the former Venezuelan president’s movements and habits for months, with America deploying a large number of warships and targeting boats in the Caribbean region for allegedly transporting drugs.
Over 150 aircraft and members of the elite Delta Force were also involved in the nighttime operation, when the US apparently “plunged the South American country’s capital into darkness” using what Trump said was a “certain expertise that we have”.
Trump said the speed and the violence during the “two-hour-and-twenty-minute mission by air, land and sea” was “an amazing thing”, according to the BBC, which also reported that the US President responded to a question about whether they could have killed Maduro by saying, “It could have happened.”
At least 40 people were killed in the country, The New York Times reported, quoting “a senior Venezuelan official who spoke on condition of anonymity”. It added that two US officials said “about half a dozen [American] soldiers were injured in the overall operation”.
Maduro, who was presented in a New York courthouse over “narco-terrorism charges”, was in power for over a decade; he and his wife pleaded not guilty. Previously, the former president had “accused the US of seeking to take control of his nation’s oil reserves, the biggest in the world”.
Interestingly, following his capture, Maduro’s claim appeared to be true as, according to The Guardian, Trump said, “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the operation as a “law enforcement function” to “capture an indicted drug trafficker”, not “an attack on Venezuela”, according to CNN.
The US president has also said his country will “run” Venezuela as long as a safe transition of power could be ensured.
Criticism, condemnation
However, concerns have been raised, both inside and outside the US, including by legal experts and international bodies, about the legality of the strikes and Maduro’s capture.
Additionally, five Latin American countries, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay, as well as Spain “expressed deep concern” over the US operation in Venezuela by issuing a joint statement that rejected “the military actions carried out unilaterally”.
The actions “contravene fundamental principles of international law, particularly the prohibition of the use and threat of force, and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations”, according to the statement issued Sunday.
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a group of 20 countries, convened a meeting on 3 January, saying it was “actively monitoring the situation which is of grave concern to the Region with possible implications for neighbouring countries”.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply alarmed” by the developments in Venezuela, saying they “constitute a dangerous precedent”, according to his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric. “He’s deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected.”
Other South American countries had different reactions.
Argentinian President Javier Milei celebrated Maduro’s capture, saying it was “excellent news for the free world”, while his Ecuadorian counterpart, Daniel Noboa Azin, mentioned, “The time is coming for all the narco-Chavista criminals.”
Hinting at Maduro being an illegitimate president, Peru’s José Jerí welcomed the intervention, noting, “Venezuela is beginning a new era of democracy and freedom.”
The responses from Bolivia and Paraguay were vague and neutral.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first observed that the video shows an operation during the day, not a nighttime raid like the one that took place in Venezuela to capture Maduro.
Through a reverse-image search, we traced the image to a 11 June 2025 video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by Special Assistant to US President Donald Trump, Margo Martin, who said it shows “US Special Forces”. The visual is a screenshot from the same clip.
A comparison of the viral visual (L) and a screenshot from the X post by Special Assistant to US President Donald Trump, Margo Martin (R).
In another X post, Martin said President Trump also joined them at Fort Bragg, a military installment and “home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces”, and watched the demonstration, scheduled ahead of a military parade to mark the US Army’s 250th anniversary on 14 June 2025.
According to an 11 June 2025 report by The Associated Press, “Trump watched the US Army demonstrate a missile strike, a helicopter assault and a building raid, a preview of the kind of show of American military might he’s expected to display in the nation’s capital for a massive military parade this weekend.”
Photos of Trump watching the Special Operations Forces’ demonstration — that match the scene depicted in the viral image — are available at AP Newsroom here and here.
A comparison of the viral visual (L) and a screenshot of the photo available on AP Newsroom (R).
We also found a matching visual on an US Army-focused Instagram account called @goyfnofficial — GOYFN is an acronym of “Get Off Your F***ing Neck”, a military motivational slogan — posted on 29 December 2025 as part of a carousel of pictures from the year.
A video of the exercise is also available on YouTube channel Media Magik Entertainment, which said in its description that the “capabilities demonstration” took place on 11 June 2025 and that the footage was provided by Sergeant Landon Carter.
Carter also posted visuals from the same event on his Instagram account, where he describes himself as an “US Army Combat Photographer” who has been “posting military and non-military photos since 2018”.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the picture in question is unrelated to the recent US operation in Venezuela.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the image posted here, here, here, here, and here.
We also found that some Facebook users had shared the full video, claiming it showed the US nighttime operation in Venezuela. Examples of such posts are available here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The full clip was also posted here, here, here, here, and here on Instagram and here and here on X.
Conclusion: The viral image is originally from a video showing a US Special Operations Forces’ demonstration at Fort Bragg in North Carolina on 10 June 2025.
Background image in cover photo: NicolasMaduro
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