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He had been introduced to Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump\u2019s longtime bodyguard, through someone who worked in private security. Schiller attended a March 2019 event at the University Club in Washington for potential donors with activist Lester Toledo, then Guaid\u00f3\u2019s coordinator for the delivery of humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last May, Goudreau accompanied Schiller to a meeting in Miami with representatives of Guaid\u00f3. There was a lively discussion with Schiller about the need to beef up security for Guaid\u00f3 and his growing team of advisers inside Venezuela and across the world, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Schiller thought Goudreau was naive and in over his head. He cut off all contact following the meeting, said a person close to the former White House official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Bogota, it was Toledo who introduced Goudreau to a rebellious former Venezuelan military officer the American would come to trust above all others \u2014 Cliver Alcal\u00e1, ringleader of the Venezuelan military deserters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcal\u00e1, a retired major general in Venezuela\u2019s army, seemed an unlikely hero to restore democracy to his homeland. In 2011, he was sanctioned by the U.S. for allegedly supplying FARC guerrillas in Colombia with surface-to-air missiles in exchange for cocaine. And last month, Alcal\u00e1 was indicted by U.S. prosecutors alongside Maduro as one of the architects of a narcoterrorist conspiracy that allegedly sent 250 metric tons of cocaine every year to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcal\u00e1 is now in federal custody in New York awaiting trial. But before his surrender in Colombia, where he had been living since 2018, he had emerged as a forceful opponent of Maduro, not shy about urging military force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over two days of meetings with Goudreau and Toledo at the JW Marriott, Alcal\u00e1 explained how he had selected 300 combatants from among the throngs of low-ranking soldiers who abandoned Maduro and fled to Colombia in the early days of Guaid\u00f3\u2019s uprising, said three people who participated in the meeting and insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcal\u00e1 said several dozen men were already living in three camps he maintained in and around the desert-like La Guajira peninsula that Colombia shares with Venezuela, the three said. Among the combatants in the camps was an exiled national guardsman accused of participating in a 2018 drone attack on Maduro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goudreau told Alcal\u00e1 his company could prepare the men for battle, according to the three sources. The two sides discussed weapons and equipment for the volunteer army, with Goudreau estimating a budget of around $1.5 million for a rapid strike operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goudreau told participants at the meeting that he had high-level contacts in the Trump administration who could assist the effort, although he offered few details, the three people said. Over time, many of the people involved in the plan to overthrow Maduro would come to doubt his word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the outset, the audacious plan split an opposition coalition already sharply divided by egos and strategy. There were concerns that Alcal\u00e1, with a murky past and ties to the regime through a brother who was Maduro\u2019s ambassador to Iran, couldn\u2019t be trusted. Others worried about going behind the backs of their Colombian allies and the U.S. government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Goudreau didn\u2019t share the concerns about Alcal\u00e1, according to two people close to the former American solider. Over time, he would come to share Alcal\u00e1\u2019s mistrust of the opposition, whose talk of restoring democracy was belied by what he saw as festering corruption and closed-door deal making with the regime, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More importantly to Goudreau, Alcal\u00e1 retained influence in the armed forces that Maduro\u2019s opponents, mostly civilian elites, lacked. He also knew the terrain, having served as the top commander along the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe needed someone who knew the monster from the inside,\u201d recalled one exiled former officer who joined the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guaid\u00f3\u2019s envoys, including Toledo, ended contact with Goudreau after the Bogota meeting because they believed it was a suicide mission, according to three people close to the opposition leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Undeterred, Goudreau returned to Colombia with four associates, all of them U.S. combat veterans, and begin working directly with Alcal\u00e1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alcal\u00e1 and Goudreau revealed little about their military plans when they toured the camps. Some of the would-be combatants were told by the two men that the rag-tag army would cross the border in a heavily armed convoy and sweep into Caracas within 96 hours, according to multiple soldiers at the camps. Goudreau told the volunteers that \u2014 once challenged in battle \u2014 Maduro\u2019s food-deprived, demoralized military would collapse like dominoes, several of the soldiers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NO CHANCE TO SUCCEED<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many saw the plan as foolhardy and there appears to have been no serious attempt to seek U.S. military support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was no chance they were going to succeed without direct U.S. military intervention,\u201d said Mattos, the former Navy SEAL who spent two weeks in September training the volunteers in basic tactical medicine on behalf of his non-profit, which works in combat zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mattos visited the camps after hearing about them from a friend working in Colombia. He said he never met Goudreau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mattos said he was surprised by the barren conditions. There was no running water and men were sleeping on the floors, skipping meals and training with sawed-off broomsticks in place of assault rifles. Five Belgian shepherds trained to sniff out explosives were as poorly fed as their handlers and had to be given away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mattos said he grew wary as the men recalled how Goudreau had boasted to them of having protected Trump and told them he was readying a shipment of weapons and arranging aerial support for an eventual assault of Maduro\u2019s compound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The volunteers also shared with Mattos a three-page document listing supplies needed for a three-week operation, which he provided to AP. Items included 320 M4 assault rifles, an anti-tank rocket launcher, Zodiac boats, $1 million in cash and state-of-the-art night vision goggles. The document\u2019s metadata indicates it was created by Goudreau on June 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUnfortunately, there\u2019s a lot of cowboys in this business who try to peddle their military credentials into a big pay day,\u201d said Mattos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AP found no indication U.S. officials sponsored Goudreau\u2019s actions nor that Trump has authorized covert operations against Maduro, something that requires congressional notification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Colombian authorities were aware of his movements, as were prominent opposition politicians in Venezuela and exiles in Bogota, some of whom shared their findings with U.S. officials, according to two people familiar with the discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n True to his reputation as a self-absorbed loose cannon, Alcal\u00e1 openly touted his plans for an incursion in a June meeting with Colombia\u2019s National Intelligence Directorate and appealed for their support, said a former Colombian official familiar with the conversation. Alcal\u00e1 also boasted about his relationship with Goudreau, describing him as a former CIA agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the Colombians checked with their CIA counterparts in Bogota, they were told that the former Green Beret was never an agent. Alcal\u00e1 was then told by his hosts to stop talking about an invasion or face expulsion, the former Colombian official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unclear where Alcal\u00e1 and Goudreau got their backing, and whatever money was collected for the initiative appears to have been meager. One person who allegedly promised support was Roen Kraft, an eccentric descendant of the cheese-making family who \u2014 along with former Trump bodyguard Schiller \u2014 was among those meeting with opposition envoys in Miami and Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point, Kraft started raising money among his own circle of fellow trust-fund friends for what he described as a \u201cprivate coup\u201d to be carried out by Silvercorp, according to two businessmen whom he asked for money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kraft allegedly lured prospective donors with the promise of preferential access to negotiate deals in the energy and mining sectors with an eventual Guaid\u00f3 government, said one of the businessmen. He provided AP a two-page, unsigned draft memorandum for a six-figure commitment he said was sent by Kraft in October in which he represents himself as the \u201cprime contractor\u201d of Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it was never clear if Kraft really had the inside track with the Venezuelans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a phone interview with AP, Kraft acknowledged meeting with Goudreau three times last year. But he said the two never did any business together and only discussed the delivery of humanitarian aid for Venezuela. He said Goudreau broke off all communications with him on Oct. 14, when it seemed he was intent on a military action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI never gave him any money,\u201d said Kraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n `WE KNEW EVERYTHING’<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in Colombia, more recruits were arriving to the three camps \u2014 even if the promised money didn\u2019t. Goudreau tried to bring a semblance of order. Uniforms were provided, daily exercise routines intensified and Silvercorp instructed the would-be warriors in close quarter combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goudreau is \u201cmore of a Venezuelan patriot than many Venezuelans,\u201d said Hern\u00e1n Alem\u00e1n, a lawmaker from western Zulia state and one of a few politicians to openly embrace the clandestine mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alem\u00e1n said in an interview that neither the U.S. nor the Colombian governments were involved in the plot to overthrow Maduro. He claims he tried to speak several times to Guaid\u00f3 about the plan but said the opposition leader showed little interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLots of people knew about it, but they didn\u2019t support us,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were too afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plot quickly crumbled in early March when one of the volunteer combatants was arrested after sneaking across the border into Venezuela from Colombia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shortly after, Colombian police stopped a truck transporting a cache of brand new weapons and tactical equipment worth around $150,000, including spotting scopes, night vision goggles, two-way radios and 26 American-made assault rifles with the serial numbers rubbed off. Fifteen brown-colored helmets were manufactured by High-End Defense Solutions, a Miami-based military equipment vendor owned by a Venezuelan immigrant family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n High-End Defense Solutions is the same company that Goudreau visited in November and December, allegedly to source weapons, according to two former Venezuelan soldiers who claim to have helped the American select the gear but later had a bitter falling out with Goudreau amid accusations that they were moles for Maduro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Company owner Mark Von Reitzenstein did not respond to repeated email and phone requests seeking comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alcal\u00e1 claimed ownership of the weapons shortly before surrendering to face the U.S. drug charges, saying they belonged to the \u201cVenezuelan people.\u201d He also lashed out against Guaid\u00f3, accusing him of betraying a contract signed between his \u201cAmerican advisers\u201d and J.J. Rendon, a political strategist in Miami appointed by Guaid\u00f3 to help force Maduro from power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe had everything ready,\u201d lamented Alcal\u00e1 in a video published on social media. \u201cBut circumstances that have plagued us throughout this fight against the regime generated leaks from the very heart of the opposition, the part that wants to coexist with Maduro.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through a spokesman, Guaid\u00f3 stood by comments made to Colombian media that he never signed any contract of the kind described by Alcal\u00e1, whom he said he doesn\u2019t know. Rendon said his work for Guaid\u00f3 is confidential and he would be required to deny any contract, whether or not it exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Alcal\u00e1 has offered no evidence and the alleged contract has yet to emerge, though AP repeatedly asked Goudreau for a copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the aftermath of Alcal\u00e1\u2019s arrest, the would-be insurrection appears to have disbanded. As the coronavirus spreads, several of the remaining combatants have fled the camps and fanned out across Colombia, reconnecting with loved ones and figuring out their next steps. Most are broke, facing investigation by Colombian police and frustrated with Goudreau, whom they blame for leading them astray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the socialist leadership in Caracas couldn\u2019t help but gloat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Diosdado Cabello, the No. 2 most powerful person in the country and eminence grise of Venezuela\u2019s vast intelligence network, insisted that the government had infiltrated the plot for months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe knew everything,\u201d said Cabello. \u201cSome of their meetings we had to pay for. That\u2019s how infiltrated they were.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York and investigative reporter James LaPorta in Delray Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The plan was simple, but perilous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-post-featured-layout","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,23,89,12,26,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2966],"class_list":["post-21710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-navy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"U5YXIV4ITJDJLIAIZGUYPGXVQU","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2020\/05\/01\/ex-green-beret-led-failed-attempt-to-oust-venezuelas-maduro\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"featured-layout","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP20114597817985.jpg.jpg\")
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