CARACAS — The Venezuelan government said security forces foiled an armed incursion Sunday morning near the capital, Caracas, killing eight men and capturing the remaining two.
Néstor Reverol, the interior minister, said that the group of “mercenary terrorists” had come from Colombia by speedboat, intending to overthrow the government, but that it was stopped at the port of La Guaira, near Caracas.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a retired American Green Beret, Jordan Goudreau, and a retired Venezuelan army captain, Javier Nieto. In a video posted on social media, the two men said that “Operation Gedeon” had been successfully launched “deep into the heart of Caracas” and that other armed cells had been activated throughout the country.
“It is obvious that the electoral measures, the democratic and political ones of all kinds, have been exhausted,” Captain Nieto said in the video, defending the decision to try to topple the Venezuelan government with arms.
There was no evidence of fighting in Caracas or elsewhere in the country, but Venezuela’s Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino López, announced a sweep operation in the capital shortly after authorities said they repulsed the raid.
President Nicolás Maduro and his officials have denounced dozens of what they said were coup and assassination attempts in recent years as the economy has sunk deeper into crisis and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country. Some of the assertions proved to be true, while others were never independently verified.
The uprisings denounced by the government often have their roots in real discontent among Venezuelan officials and military officers but are almost always exaggerated to create a siege mentality among government supporters and to garner international sympathy, analysts say.
The vice president of Venezuela’s governing party, Diosdado Cabello — who, like Mr. Reverol, has been linked by the United States to a drug conspiracy — said the plot thwarted on Sunday had been organized by Clíver Alcalá, a dissident retired Venezuelan general who recently surrendered to United States law enforcement to face drug charges.
Before being taken into custody, General Alcalá said in March from his exile in Colombia that he was organizing a military incursion into neighboring Venezuela to overthrow Mr. Maduro. His plan was dismantled by the Colombian authorities, he said.
The Associated Press reported on Friday that General Alcalá was working on the plot with Mr. Goudreau, who, it said, was drawn to the cause of Venezuela by the prospect of big payout for his private security firm and romantic desire to topple a repressive regime.
Mr. Diosdado blamed the United States, Colombia and international drug cartels — the government’s usual scapegoats for the deep economic hardships facing Venezuela — for the most recent attack. He said that one of the detained men had confessed to being an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration and that combat helmets with American flags were among the captured matériel.
The State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs discounted the report of a coup attempt. “We have little reason to believe anything that comes out of the former regime,” a spokesperson said. “The Maduro regime has been consistent in its use of misinformation in order to shift focus from its mismanagement of Venezuela.”
The bureau went on to note human rights abuses, corruption and “thousands of murders of Venezuelans” by the Maduro government.
Venezuela’s struggling economy went into a tailspin this year after a modest improvement in living conditions was derailed by the coronavirus pandemic, the collapse of the oil prices and a tightening of American sanctions. Mr. Maduro responded to the crisis by reverting to economic controls and printing more local currency, which sank local food production and unleashed a new bout of hyperinflation.
Julie Turkewitz contributed reporting from Bogotá and Adriana Fernandez Loureiro from Caracas.
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