Cuba's shadow in Venezuela: Havana’s intelligence and military ties exposed after Maduro raid

Cuba acknowledged that 32 of its citizens — described by the authorities arsenic members of the island’s equipped forces and quality services — were killed during the U.S. cognition that seized Venezuelan person Nicolás Maduro successful Caracas, declaring 2 days of nationalist mourning successful their honor.

Havana did not specify wherever the unit were stationed during the raid. But their deaths person renewed scrutiny of years of reporting and planetary investigations documenting Cuba’s heavy and covert engagement wrong Venezuela’s subject and quality structures.

Jorge Jraissati, a Venezuelan governmental analyst, said Cuba’s quality relation was captious to the consolidation of powerfulness archetypal nether Hugo Chávez and aboriginal nether Maduro. "Experts usually nexus Cuba arsenic the astir important quality supplier of Venezuela. This includes issues similar moving elections, gathering diplomatic leverage with different countries and keeping the information forces successful check, among others," helium told Fox News Digital.

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Cubans clasp a Venezuelan nationalist emblem with a Cuban 1 during a gathering successful enactment of Venezuelan person Nicolás Maduro successful Havana connected Jan. 3, 2026, aft US forces captured him. President Donald Trump said Saturday that US forces had captured Venezuela's person Nicolás Maduro aft bombing the superior Caracas and different cities successful a melodramatic climax to a months-long standoff betwixt Trump and his Venezuelan arch-foe. (Adalberto Roque / AFP via Getty Images)

Jraissati said immoderate modulation successful Venezuela "would necessitate the American government, successful concern with the Venezuelan people, to enactment unneurotic connected minimizing the Cubans’ power implicit Venezuela’s authorities apparatus and nine astatine large."

A Reuters probe published successful August 2019 recovered that 2 confidential agreements signed successful 2008 granted Cuba sweeping entree to Venezuela’s equipped forces and quality services. Under those agreements, Cuban officials were authorized to bid Venezuelan troops, restructure quality agencies and assistance physique an interior surveillance strategy focused connected monitoring Venezuela’s ain military, according to the report.

Those arrangements played a cardinal relation successful transforming Venezuela’s subject counterintelligence bureau — the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) — into a unit designed to observe dissent, instill fearfulness wrong the ranks and guarantee loyalty to the government, the probe found.

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Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's president, right, greets Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cuba's president, during the 23rd States of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America People's Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) Summit astatine Miraflores Palace successful Caracas, Venezuela, connected Wednesday, April 24, 2024. The confederation of leftist countries successful the portion are gathering to cull the US's reimposed lipid sanctions connected Venezuela, ending a six-month reprieve for the Maduro regime. 

The findings were aboriginal echoed by the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission connected Venezuela, which said it reviewed a 2008 memorandum of knowing betwixt Cuba and Venezuela. The U.N. ngo reported that the statement provided for Cuban advisory oversight successful the restructuring of Venezuelan subject intelligence, including the instauration of caller agencies, grooming of counterintelligence officers and assistance with surveillance and infiltration techniques.

Former Venezuelan officials cited by Havana Times and El Toque person described Cuban advisers embedded crossed immoderate of the country’s astir delicate institutions, including the civilian quality work SEBIN, DGCIM, the defence ministry, ports and airports and Venezuela’s nationalist recognition system.

Human rights organizations and planetary investigators accidental those structures were cardinal to the government’s effect to wide protests successful 2014 and 2017, erstwhile Venezuelan information forces carried retired wide arrests and deadly crackdowns connected demonstrators.

The U.N. fact-finding ngo documented patterns of extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detention and torture, and reported that Cuban advisers helped bid Venezuelan unit successful methods utilized to track, interrogate and repress governmental opponents.

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Experts accidental Cuba’s admittance that its subject and quality unit were killed during a U.S. cognition wrong Venezuela has sharpened absorption connected the alliance’s existent depth, turning years of documentation into an contiguous geopolitical issue.