Dramatic video shows the moment a pair of former US Special Forces soldiers were captured by Venezuelan troops after what officials are calling a coup attempt to oust President Nicolás Maduro.
Footage shows Luke Denman, 34, and Airan Berry, 41, with their hands up in the air in the port city of La Guaira, being walked to shore at gunpoint, according to the Daily Mail.
They are then forced to lie down on the ground with six other men — believed to be among the 300 mercenaries recruited in Colombia for the failed coup attempt.
Former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau claimed responsibility for orchestrating the raid, calling it “Operation Gideon” and saying it was an attempt to capture Maduro and “liberate” the South American nation.
Denman and Berry both served in Afghanistan, the report said.
Maduro quickly blamed the failed assault on the US government.
“The United States government is fully and completely involved in this defeated raid,” he said at a press conference.
He said the two American soldiers “were playing Rambo. They were playing hero.”
Venezuela has lapsed into chaos under Maduro’s leadership, with the country in a deep economic crisis that has forced nearly 5 million to flee the country.
The White House has made no secret that it would like see the end of Maduro, who was recently indicted in the US as a drug trafficker, with a $15 million bounty offered for his arrest.
But President Trump denied any involvement in the botched raid on Tuesday.
“We’ll find out,” the president said. “We just heard about it. But it has nothing to do with our government.”
Goudreau, who claims the raid was backed by an American billionaire, had been plotting it for months and told the Associated Press he had a deal with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido to overthrow Maduro — something Guaido denies.
