Name: How the US captured Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-01-04T17:01:23.000Z
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Hours after President Trump announced the US had captured Venezuela's president after launching strikes on the country.

A social media page run by the White House posted this video you can see here.

It shows Mr. Maduro entering the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in New York.

It was posted alongside the comment perp walked.

That's an expression for the public display of an alleged perpetrator of a crime by law enforcement officials.

Maduro and his wife Celia Flores had been flown to an air base outside New York after being captured in the capital Caracas.

He was then transferred to Manhattan where he was indicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges.

U.S. reports say he is spending the night at the notorious Metropolitan Detention center in Brooklyn.

Now that's a facility that has handled many high profile cases, including rapper R.

Kelly, the Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and most recently Sean Diddy Combs.

Mr. Maduro had been taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being flown to New York.

officials releasing this photo you can see of him here on board the USS Iwo Jima as it headed to Cuba due to make his first federal court appearance.

On Monday in the coming hours here on BBC News, we will bring you all the latest reaction and analysis from our expert guests and the BBC's range of correspondence here and abroad.

So we start our coverage with our World News correspondent, Joe Inwood.

It was a sight not seen since the Cold War.

In the dead of night, bases across Venezuela were struck in a huge coordinated strike.

Terrified people, some thinking it was an earthquake, soon realized they were under attack.

But this was not designed to be the start of a prolonged campaign, but

rather hover for an operation to capture Venezuela's president.

A few hours later, this extraordinary image was released by President Trump.

Nicolas Maduro, who just a few hours before had ruled over tens of millions of people in US custody on board the USS Iwo Jima.

Along with his wife Celia Flores, both of whom now face American justice.

For more than a decade, Nicolas Maduro had ruled over Venezuela.

Just over a year ago, he claimed victory in highly disputed elections.

In recent months, his forces had been on high alert, a response to the ramping up of pressure from the us.

That pressure took the form of a massive build up of forces in the Caribbean.

The US had always insisted it was about combating drug smuggling, but

few thought that was credible and Yesterday it was confirmed their aim was regime change.

We demand the immediate liberation of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, the only president of Venezuela.

The US says Nicolas Maduro and his wife will face federal charges in New York, where they arrived yesterday afternoon.

According to President Trump, the US Is now in charge of Venezuela.

We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.

So we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get in.

And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.

Many people, including Nicolas Maduro, have always insisted this was about Venezuela's vast oil reserves.

That view will not have been changed by this announcement.

We're going to have our very large United States oil company companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and

Even before the US announced its temporary takeover, there had been condemnation from many quarters.

Protesters gathered outside the White House.

But inside Venezuela, the shock of the night soon turned to fear for what might come next.

People are in their own thing, buying things to go back home.

A lot of uncertainty in the entire country for everyone.

But, well, it's an enigma that we are living right now.

Late last night, the convoy carrying Nicolas Maduro and Celia Flores arrived at the Drug Enforcement Agency offices in New York, where they will be charged with multiple offences.

As for what comes next for Venezuela, that is far less certain.

How they plan to do that is not yet clear.

These photos were taken as the operation to capture Nicolas Maduro took place.

It is hard to overstate the importance of these events.

It feels like the world is at a turning point.

Joe Inwood, BBC News, BBC Mundo reporter Daniel Pardo sent us this update from Cucuto, which is on the border of Venezuela and Colombia.

Behind me, you have a huge presence of Colombian authorities.

You have people from the presidency, from military, from the police, from the local regions here.

And they're thinking about two different lines.

First of all, they're thinking in terms of humanitarian schemes.

They want to prevent people not from coming to Venezuela, but help them come to Colombia.

Bear in mind that Colombia is the most affected country in the region.

From what happens in Venezuela, one third of the 8 million Venezuelans who fled the current country during the economic and political crisis are here in Colombia.

So there's huge concern in the country for what comes next.

And then the other line that they're trying to tackle is the armed groups that are settled here.

Bear in mind that in this border, which is huge and very prosecuted, you have armed groups from the guerrillas of Colombia, from narco paramilitaries and from drug dealers.

All of those groups right now are trying to fill in the vacuum power that came out of Venezuela's and Maduro's capture.

So it's very likely that we're going to see an increase of violence in this region.

And this is what the Colombian authorities are trying to build up for.

There is so much interest in the journey that Nicolas Maduro took to New York after his capture.

It was around 3,300 kilometers or 2,100 miles.

And the BBC News Live page has this map which shows you the journey.

Flown out of the capital Caracas on a US Helicopter in the early hours of Saturday morning and taken aboard a U.S.

warship at an unknown location in the Caribbean Sea.

Later flown to Guantanamo Bay, US Naval base in Cuba, then transferred to another plane to head to Stuart Air Force Base in New York State's Orange County, Maduro, then transferred by helicopter to New York City.

So we're showing you that just to give you a good idea of one of the things that's on the BBC News Live page at the moment.

Keeping up to date with all the developments with analysis from correspondents and people right around the region and the world.

One of our experts is our Latin America Online editor, Vanessa Bushlitter, who is with me now.

And Vanessa, firstly to reflect on, on the people of Venezuela today.

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How the US captured Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro | BBC News

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