{"id":628472,"date":"2025-12-12T14:51:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T14:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/628472\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T14:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T14:51:13","slug":"dangerous-and-scary-how-a-us-special-forces-vet-helped-maria-corina-machado-flee-venezuela-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/628472\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Dangerous and scary\u2019: how a US special forces vet helped Mar\u00eda Corina Machado flee Venezuela | Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mar\u00eda Corina Machado\u2019s getaway from Venezuela<\/a> involved a long, \u201cscary\u201d and very wet sea crossing in the dead of night with no lights, according to the American man who says he led the operation.<\/p>\n

Bryan Stern, who heads a nonprofit rescue organisation, detailed the mission in an CBS interview<\/a> published on Thursday after the Venezuelan opposition figure emerged in Norway after the Nobel peace prize<\/a> ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was dangerous. It was scary,\u201d said Stern, a US special forces veteran, describing dark and choppy conditions that also provided convenient cover for the escape.<\/p>\n

He recalled meeting Machado out at sea after she left Venezuela<\/a>, where she had been in hiding since August 2024 fearing persecution by President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

She boarded his boat for a 13- to 14-hour journey to an undisclosed location to catch a plane as part of a mission planned four days earlier, CBS<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sea conditions were ideal for us, but certainly not water that you would want to be on … the higher the waves, the harder it is for radar to see,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was in the middle of the night \u2013 very little moon, a little bit of cloud cover, very hard to see, boats have no lights. All of us were pretty wet. My team and I were soaked to the gills. She was pretty cold and wet, too. She had a very arduous journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was very happy. She was very excited. She was very tired,\u201d Stern said, adding that about two dozen people were directly involved within his team.<\/p>\n

A representative for Machado confirmed Stern\u2019s company, Grey Bull Rescue Foundation<\/a>, was behind the operation, which began on Tuesday, CBS said.<\/p>\n

The account follows reporting by the Wall Street Journal<\/a> that Machado wore a wig and a disguise to flee her hideout in a suburb of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.<\/p>\n

Stern did not divulge details about the land operation, citing his company\u2019s future work in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

He told CBS the mission was financed by \u201ca few generous donors\u201d \u2013 none of whom were US officials. \u201cThe US government did not contribute a single penny to this operation, at least not that I know of,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n

He said, however, that his group did \u201cunofficially collaborate\u201d with the US military about positioning and plans, largely to avoid being targeted by airstrikes.<\/p>\n

Machado said on Thursday she had US support to leave Venezuela. She has announced plans to return home, though it is not clear how or when she will do so.<\/p>\n

Stern said his group would not be involved in that operation as it worked only on getting people out of countries, not in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s for her to determine and for her to decide. But I think she should not go back. But she wants to. Maria is truly inspirational,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mar\u00eda Corina Machado\u2019s getaway from Venezuela involved a long, \u201cscary\u201d and very wet sea crossing in the dead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-628472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115707162309339325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}