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For nearly ten months, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit of the United States operated in the Caribbean with a mission that culminated in the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, as revealed in a report by the newspaper ABC based on an interview with the operation's commander at the Pentagon.
Colonel Thomas "Banshee" Trimble, leading the unit, described what he termed an "unprecedented deployment in the Americas": a series of missions that ranged from combat in Haiti to the interception of sanctioned oil tankers and, finally, the securing of the American embassy in Caracas.
It all started with an unexpected order. The unit had set sail from the Norfolk base heading to Europe and the Middle East, but as soon as they moved away from the coast, they received instructions to turn south. "When we were told we had to turn south, we threw away eight and a half months of planning," Trimble summarized.
The force, made up of approximately 2,200 marines, infantry, aircraft, and special forces, operated aboard the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault ship over 250 meters long that served as a floating military base.
The complete amphibious group consisted of approximately 4,500 military personnel and also included the USS San Antonio and the USS Fort Lauderdale.
The first mission arrived almost immediately: to reinforce the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where the Marines faced armed gangs that controlled much of the capital.
According to the colonel, there were "multiple violent incidents" in which the marines "came under fire and returned fire," although there were no casualties on their side.
"We strengthened our positions and were well-trained to understand exactly what the rules of that confrontation were," Trimble explained.
Meanwhile, the unit participated in the Operation South Launch, formally expanded on November 13, 2025, by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to combat narcoterrorism in the Caribbean, and intercepted sanctioned tankers linked to the Venezuelan regime.
As a show of strength, the unit conducted amphibious landing exercises in Puerto Rico with the capability to put ashore up to 1,000 Marines in a single day, an unmistakable signal directed at Caracas.
The climax came in the early hours of January 3, 2026, when the Absolute Resolution Operation captured Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in a fortified bunker in Caracas.
The incursion, carried out by the elite unit Delta Force with the support of the CIA, began at 2:10 AM and lasted approximately two and a half hours.
Seven U.S. military personnel were injured, with no fatalities, while 24 Venezuelan security officials and 32 Cuban military and police officers who were part of the dictator's protective detail lost their lives.
Both were transferred to New York to face charges of narcoterrorism in the Southern District of that city. The total cost of the deployment was estimated at approximately 3 billion dollars, with daily peaks of 20 million.
Trimble summarized the logic of the entire operation as follows: "This was in defense of the homeland. We were operating in the backyard of the U.S."
On March 14, the U.S. raised its flag at the embassy in Caracas for the first time in seven years, marking the culmination of nearly a year of military preparations in the Caribbean.
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