On January 3, 2026, US Delta Force soldiers and FBI agents stormed a fortified compound in Caracas and seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — the most audacious American military operation in decades. By dawn, he was aboard the USS Iwo Jima. By evening, he was in a Brooklyn jail.

The raid was the culmination of a months-long pressure campaign that began with naval deployments, escalated through dozens of lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, and ended with the first US strike inside Venezuelan territory just days before the final operation.

The operation — named Operation Absolute Resolve — launched at 10:46 PM ET on January 2. Helicopters flew at 100 feet above water into Venezuelan airspace. Venezuelan forces opened fire; one US aircraft was hit but remained airborne. Maduro attempted to flee to a steel-reinforced safe room he'd had built for exactly this scenario. He gave up.

A CIA team had been inside Venezuela since August 2025, tracking his movements, meals, and even his pets. Delta Force trained for months using a replica of his compound. Trump had personally called Maduro days earlier to warn him to surrender. He refused.