America and Venezuela are becoming enemies quickly. But this is the worst it has gotten so far.
Now Venezuela’s Maduro was nearly captured after the U.S. attempts to flip a personal pilot.
US Agent’s Audacious Plot to Snare Maduro via His Pilot
In a high-stakes gambit straight out of a spy novel, retired DHS agent Edwin Lopez, a battle-hardened former Army Ranger, spent 16 months trying to turn Venezuelan Gen. Bitner Villegas—Nicolás Maduro’s trusted chief pilot—into an insider for a U.S. capture operation.
The scheme, hatched under Biden but amplified under Trump’s aggressive anti-cartel push, aimed to divert Maduro’s luxury jet for an arrest tied to his 2020 narco-terrorism indictment, offering Villegas riches and hero status in exchange. Details emerged from anonymous U.S. officials, opposition sources, and authenticated texts, revealing Lopez’s relentless pursuit even post-retirement in July 2025.
From Tip to Tense Hangar Pitch
The intrigue ignited on April 24, 2024, when a tipster alerted the closed U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic about two sanctioned Maduro jets—Dassault Falcons—under repair at La Isabela airport, violating U.S. parts bans. Lopez, then a Homeland Security Investigations attaché probing Caribbean crime rings, spotted the opening: Flip one of the five dispatched pilots to fly Maduro into a trap at spots like Guantánamo or Puerto Rico.
Agents lured the pilots into a hangar conference room under casual pretenses, grilling them one by one. Saving the prize for last, Lopez bantered with the reserved, elite honor guard colonel—fresh off ferrying Maduro to allies like Russia and Iran—before dropping the bombshell: Betray the strongman for wealth and Venezuelan adoration.
Villegas, legs shaking, admitted flying Chávez and Maduro, showed incriminating photos, and slipped Lopez his number before bolting—noncommittal but intrigued. The jets stayed grounded; one was seized in September 2024, the other by Secretary Marco Rubio in February 2025, yielding intel on Venezuelan air force ops amid Maduro’s “brazen theft” fury.
Encrypted Wooing and a Final Cyber Jab
Undeterred, Lopez messaged Villegas via WhatsApp and Telegram, dangling a freshly doubled $50 million bounty in an August 7 text: “I’m still waiting for your answer,” with a Justice Department link.
“There’s still time left to be Venezuela’s hero and be on the right side of history,” he urged later. An exiled opponent called Lopez “obsessed,” his post-retirement drive making him “more valuable than many of Maduro’s biggest opponents inside Venezuela.”
Villegas ghosted until a September 18 X post about a suspicious Caracas flight loop prompted Lopez’s outreach from a new number. The pilot snapped back: “We Venezuelans are cut from a different cloth. The last thing we are is traitors.”
Lopez fired a hangar photo; Villegas: “Are you crazy?” Lopez: “A little…” He invoked Villegas’s three kids and a U.S. future, but got blocked: “The window for a decision is closing. Soon it will be too late.”
Trump’s Escalation Rattles the Regime
Rebuffed, Lopez and anti-Maduro allies pivoted to psyops. The next day, ex-national security official Marshall Billingslea trolled on X: “Feliz cumpleanos ‘General’ Bitner!”—pairing a cropped hangar pic with Villegas’s promotion photo on his 48th birthday.
Viewed by nearly 3 million, it timed perfectly: A sanctioned Maduro Airbus aborted takeoff from Caracas 20 minutes later, vanishing Villegas for days amid speculation of grilling or jail. He resurfaced September 24 on state TV with Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who hailed him as an “unfailing, kick–ss patriot” while he fist-pumped loyalty—exposing regime paranoia.
Under Trump, the saga fits a fiercer playbook: Caribbean naval surges k*lling 57 in 13 narco-boat strikes, CIA covert ops green-lit this month, and bounties hiked to choke Maduro’s drug lifeline to cartels, terrorists, and Cuba. Lopez’s flop highlights U.S. improvisation against the dictator’s repression, but sows lasting doubt in his inner circle—fueling Trump’s mission to reclaim Venezuelan democracy and secure American streets.
