KENTUCKY (FOX 56) — Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela for nearly 13 years, was extradited to the United States after being removed from the country by Delta Force commandos. The New York Times (NYT) reported on Saturday that special forces team members had trained for the extraction, known as “Operation Absolute Resolve,” in Kentucky.
According to a Jan. 3 report by the NYT, leaders of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) had built a full-scale replica of Maduro’s compound in Kentucky, where commandos practiced “blowing through steel doors.”
The Associated Press reported that on Saturday, the U.S. had captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home on a military base.
“Trump said the U.S. would ‘run’ Venezuela temporarily, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that it would not govern the country day-to-day other than enforcing an existing ‘oil quarantine,'” the AP reported.
Maduro is set to be arraigned at noon in a federal courtroom in New York City in connection with a 25-page indictment. The court documents, made public on Jan. 4, allege that he and his family had funded narcoterrorists and other Venezuelan officials to smuggle tons of cocaine into the U.S. since 1999.
According to the AP, oil prices fell on Monday following Maduro’s capture over the weekend, while the prices of precious metals—notably gold and silver—jumped 2.7% and 6.6%, respectively.
The NYT reported on Jan. 3 that, unlike previous military interventions by the military in Panama or the Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba, “the operation to grab Mr. Maduro was virtually flawless, according to multiple officials familiar with the details, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the plans.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.