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The rescue operation to extract Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and transport her to Norway in time to accept her Nobel Peace Prize involved a complex series of complications and various components in land, sea and air.
The mission, dubbed Operation Golden Dynamite, was spearheaded by Bryan Stern, a U.S. special forces veteran and founder of the Tampa-based Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, which specializes in high-risk rescue missions and evacuations, notably from conflict and disaster zones.
Getting her out of Venezuela, where she is considered a fugitive by President Nicolás Maduro, involved disguises, deception, navigating choppy seas and arranging flight options.
“She’s perceived by the Maduro regime the way we perceived Osama bin Laden, like that,” Stern told Fox News. “That level of manhunt if you will.”
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Machado has been hiding out in Venezuela since Maduro won a highly disputed election last year and had not been seen in public in months.
Stern emphasized that the U.S. government was not involved in the operation.
His team had been building up a presence in the Caribbean, Venezuela and the neighboring island of Aruba in preparation for operations in the South American region.
The biggest challenge, Stern said, was getting Machado out of the country despite her being a well-known figure there. In order to move her from her house to a “beach landing site,” his team reportedly did “all kinds of things designed to create a little bit of confusion.”
“Anything that we could have possibly think of that we thought could hide her face … was employed.” Stern said. “Anything we could think of, her digital signature, her physical signature. On top of that, we did some deception operations on the ground. We made some noise in some places designed to get people to think something was happening that wasn’t.”
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The maritime operation started off rough, Stern recounted. Of the two boats deployed for the mission, the vessel that physically extracted Machado reportedly lost its GPS in the turbulent seas and suffered a mechanical hiccup that delayed the operation. The team was forced to continue into the “dead of night” in “pitch-black darkness,” navigating seas so violent that one of Stern’s seasoned operators reportedly vomited for nine hours straight.
Reaching the rendezvous point added another layer of difficulty. Stern’s boat and Machado’s vessel had to find each other in pitch-black seas while maintaining radio silence to avoid detection, ultimately locating one another by flashlight.
Stern said he had to remain cautious, fearing that the approaching boat could have been a trap set by Venezuelan forces. To confirm it was safe to proceed, his larger vessel circled Machado’s boat and shined lights on the crew.
After Stern physically pulled Machado onto his boat, he then alerted the rest of the team that Machado was secured: “Jackpot, jackpot, jackpot.”
“Now we are on the run with Maria Corina Machado, the most wanted woman in the Western Hemisphere, on my boat,” he said.
“I have the most wanted person in the Western hemisphere that I’m trying to move around,” Stern said. “Personally, she’s a hero of mine. She’s a hero of mine. I’ve been tracking her for years.”
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Once in international waters, the new concern was avoiding any appearance that they had kidnapped a Venezuelan, which would have given the government any justification to attack.
“They lie. They could have killed us for any reason,” Stern said. “We’re in the middle of the d— ocean and there’s no one around to see the truth … we are scared, we are nervous, we’re on the run and we floor it getting to the rendezvous.”
Stern ordered his boat captain to drive full throttle and not stop for anything, fearing pursuit by the Venezuelan regime.
“My boat guy, I told him I don’t care, I don’t care who comes,” Stern said. “You don’t stop. You do not stop. I don’t care, I don’t care who. You do not stop at all. Let them chase us if they have to. We have got to get to land.”
At some point during the escape, two F-18 fighter jets reportedly flew overhead. Stern described the moment as a potential complication, since they could not determine whether the jets were hostile or friendly, though he noted it was likely not part of a Navy coordination.
“There’s an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean throwing airplanes off every twenty minutes. I don’t know,” Stern said. “I can tell you that nobody in the Navy said, ‘Don’t worry, brother, we sent two F-18s to cover you.'”
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The maritime team successfully delivered Machado to safety. Stern said his team had also prepared for a possible air extraction, but that plan was abandoned after a last-minute change on Machado’s side. Instead, the final flight to Norway was arranged by her personal network using a friend’s private jet, culminating in her safe arrival.
While Grey Bull Rescue has conducted operations in high-threat environments such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Haiti, Stern said the extraction of Machado was uniquely challenging, describing it as “overwhelmingly” the most complicated mission in the organization’s 800-mission history.
