MIAMI -- A Caracas court on Thursday ordered the arrest of a businessman with ties to the socialist government of Venezuela as part of its ongoing investigation into a failed attempt earlier this year to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro.
The Supreme Court in a statement said Franklin Duran -- who the AP learned was detained Sunday along with his brother -- was suspected of crimes including treason, rebellion, conspiracy with a foreign government as well as arms trafficking and terrorism. The arrests of seven others also were ordered.
In mid-January, Jordan Goudreau was working on a secret plan to raid Venezuela and arrest Maduro when the former special forces commando flew to the city of Barranquilla in Colombia to meet with his would-be partner in arms.
To get there, Goudreau and two former Green Beret buddies relied on a chartered flight out of Miami's Opa Locka executive airport on a plane owned by a Venezuelan businessman so close to the government of the late Hugo Chavez that he spent almost four years in a U.S. prison for trying to cover up clandestine cash payments to its allies.
The owner of the Venezuela-registered Cessna Citation II was Duran, according to three people familiar with the businessman's movements who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Duran and his associates are now at the center of several investigations in the U.S., Colombia and Venezuela into how Goudreau, a combat veteran with three Bronze Stars but little knowledge of Venezuela, managed to set off a raid that ended with the capture and arrest of his two special forces colleagues.
The government has yet to comment on the arrest order or explain what role Duran may have played in the conspiracy.
But Duran's closeness to top officials had revived allegations floated by opposition leader Juan Guaido and U.S. officials that he was secretly working on Maduro's behalf and had co-opted "Operation Gideon," the name of Goudreau's foiled plot.
"There's financing here from the dictatorship," Guaido said in an interview after the raid with EVTV Miami, an online media outlet run by Venezuelan exiles. "A businessman, a front man closely linked to the host of the gossip show," he said in reference to socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello, whose weekly TV program, fed by nuggets from Venezuela's vast intelligence network that he controls, first aired in March the accusations of a planned attack by Goudreau.
Maduro has claimed that Guaido, whose aides signed a 42-page agreement last year with Goudreau in Miami outlining a plan to take control of the country, was behind the raid, with backing from the CIA or the Drug Enforcement Administration. However, Goudreau said he was never paid and the two sides angrily split.
For its part, the Trump administration has denied it was behind the plot, with President Donald Trump joking that had the U.S. been involved it would have gone very badly for Maduro.
The Associated Press first broke the story of Goudreau's bizarre plan to train a volunteer army made up of a few dozen Venezuelan military deserters at clandestine camps along the border in neighboring Colombia. They planned to attack military bases and ignite a popular uprising. Goudreau's partner, in what some opposition leaders called a suicide mission, was retired Venezuelan army Gen. Cliver Alcala, who had been living in Barranquilla after fleeing his homeland in 2018.
Information for this article was contributed by Randy Herschaft and James LaPorta of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/29/2020