Claim: Multiple visuals show Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro being captured and escorted by US forces over “narcoterrorism” charges after a raid in the country’s capital Caracas.
Fact: None of the visuals are authentic.
Shortly after the United States’ forces conducted an extensive raid in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas to capture President Nicolas Maduro on 3 January 2026, multiple visuals emerged on different social media platforms showing the forcibly-removed leader being abducted and escorted by American soldiers and then processed in a New York prison.
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, condemnations
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 visuals in question depict Maduro in an attire different from the one he was wearing when he was put aboard the USS Iwo Jima in verified images of the event.
For reference, he was seen in a “gray sweatsuit, protective headphones, and blindfold”, with handcuffs according to the photo posted by Trump on the Truth Social social media platform, The Associated Press reported.
We also reverse-searched the visuals in the claim that show Maduro being captured and escorted by US law enforcement officials and checked if they contained SynthID, an imperceptible watermark embedded in all content generated by Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
This can be done through SynthID Detector, which currently works through Gemini in Pakistan.
SynthID Detector confirmed that the first, second, sixth, and eighth photos — shown below — were created or edited using Google’s AI tools.
The third image has tell-tale signs of AI-generated content, such as a disconnected hand holding Maduro’s arm.
Moreover, the ex-Venezuelan president’s hair is longer and more grey in the authentic photo posted by Trump as opposed to the cropped hair in the viral image. His wife Cilia Flores’ hair is blonde in recent photos available on Getty Images, Reuters Pictures, and AP Pictures, compared to red in the one circulating on social media.
Additionally, the aircraft behind them appears to be a big military plane, but they were flown out first on a helicopter to the USS Iwo Jima and then to a US Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, where they were “flown on a government plane to Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York state and, then, via helicopter to Manhattan”, according to the BBC.
Lastly, Maduro was also wearing a gray sweatsuit, not black as seen in the viral photo.
The fourth image, too, shows signs of being AI-generated, such as a warped, nonsensical structure of the helicopter in the upper left. The US flag patch of the soldier on the left also appears to be incorrect, backwards, and lacks clear details.
The fifth image is doctored. The original, available in a 13 March 2023 report by Voice of America (VOA), shows pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk.
A CNN report, which carries the image of Medvedchuk, was embedded in the VOA report; from there, we were able to trace it to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Instagram account, where it was posted on 12 April 2022 with the caption, “A special operation was carried out thanks to the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine].”
The seventh photo is inauthentic. No such photo has been released and there are several inconsistencies, such as lack of a second set of measurements on the left of the height chart, with irregular spacing and numbering, and smudged hands.
The ninth picture also has at least two tell-tale signs of AI-generated content; for example, there are two rows of windows behind Maduro and he was not originally wearing white pajamas with a collar.
Moreover, Brazil’s Aos Fatos — a fact-checking organisation accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) — wrote, “According to information from the American press [The New York Times], the helicopters used in the operation were modified versions of the MH-60 and MH-47 models. However, images of the interior of these aircraft show that the environment does not correspond to the scenario depicted in the viral image.”
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the visuals circulating on multiple social media platforms.
The first one was posted here and here on Facebook.
The second was shared here, here, and here on Facebook and here, here, and here on Instagram.
The third was uploaded here on Facebook.
The fourth was posted here on Facebook.
The fifth was shared here and here on X (formerly Twitter), here, here, and here on Facebook, and here on Threads.
The sixth was posted here on Threads, here and here on Facebook, and here on X.
The seventh was shared here and here on Facebook, here on Threads, and here on X.
The eighth was posted here on Instagram, here, here, and here on Facebook, and here on Threads.
The ninth was shared here on Instagram, here on Facebook, and here on X.
Conclusion: None of the visuals are authentic.
Background image in cover photo: Andrés Silva
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com