María Corina Machado, Nobel Peace Prize 2025 and leading opposition figure in Venezuela, attempted to return to her country from Panama City on three different occasions on September 22, but was unsuccessful each time, as confirmed by her team to the agency EFE.
With these three new failed attempts, the total number of times Machado has tried to return to Venezuela rises to "at least seven," according to his collaborators.
The journalist David Alandete from ABC was a direct witness to the odyssey —internally referred to as “Operation Ithaca”— and documented the three failed attempts in less than 24 hours.
“He has been prevented from flying out of Panama. He remains there unable to leave,” reported the team of the former congresswoman.
Three attempts in a single day
The first one was by sea: a small vessel was to cross the Panama Canal and sail for several days through the Caribbean to Venezuela.
The departure procedures were completed, and the passengers' documentation submitted—Alandete himself was going to travel on board—when the company announced a mechanical failure in the engine just a few hours before departure.
Machado's team deemed the failure "suspicious": the company did not provide any alternative despite the fact that there were other boats available at the same marina.
“One might think that there was some sort of pressure”, Alandete noted.
The second attempt was a private flight to Aruba that did not receive takeoff authorization due to administrative objections regarding the nature of the flight.
Aruba finally announced that it would not allow the landing.
The third attempt targeted Curaçao and Bonaire, with the same result.
The journalist Idania Chirinos, from NTN24, special correspondent in Panama City, summarized the situation with a powerful phrase:
"The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is imprisoned in Panama. María Corina Machado is not in Venezuela not because she doesn't want to be. She's not there because they won't let her in."
Complete chronology: Seven attempts by land, sea, and air
The reconstruction of the seven failed travel attempts takes place between the end of June and September.
The first incident occurred on June 26: a private flight from Manassas, Virginia, to Curaçao that returned to Virginia after the pilot received instructions related to a U.S. communication.
Two days later, Machado bought a Copa Airlines ticket from Panama to Caracas, but the airline received a warning from the Venezuelan government about possible consequences for its operating permits. María Corina was unable to board.
There was also an attempt via land route —the transit country has not been revealed to preserve the possibility of using it in the future— and a fourth alternative via an undisclosed route that also did not succeed.
The fifth attempt was the maritime plan from September 21, which was also canceled due to a malfunction in the engine.
The three from September 22 complete the list.
“Returning to Venezuela has proven, so far, more difficult than leaving it,” wrote ABC.
"Between June and September, there was no passive waiting. Successive alternatives were prepared by air, land, and sea. Simply saying that one can return whenever they want does not capture the practical complexity that we have documented," the cited medium added.
Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli, international relations advisor to María Corina Machado, echoed on social media the summary of frustrated trips documented by ABC.
“All attempts have been blocked, denying the leader of all Venezuelans the right to return to her own country,” she stated on X.
The contrast of September 22
While Machado is accumulating failures in Panama, the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez —accused of crimes against humanity— met on the same day, September 22, with President Trump in New York, on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly.
The image was widely noted: the Nobel Prize winner stranded in Panama while Rodríguez shook hands with Guterres and sat down with the U.S. president.
The eventual return of Machado occurs in a context of intense political dispute with Rodríguez's government: a survey by Meganálisis gives her over 80% of the votes in a hypothetical electoral match against Rodríguez. However, the blockade does not solely come from Caracas.
At the end of August, Trump signed a controversial oil agreement with the Rodríguez government that grants the company NABEP rights to 17 fields with estimated reserves of 65 billion barrels.
Sectors of the White House fear that Machado's return will destabilize that agreement.
The contradictory signals from Washington regarding Machado's return
The Deputy Secretary Cartwright Weiland stated before Congress on July 15: "She is a Venezuelan citizen and has the right to return to her country."
However, the White House reportedly asked Machado to visit Washington before returning, a request that the opposition leader did not comply with.
Officials from the Trump administration, speaking anonymously, described his insistence as “grotesque political opportunism.”
Machado does not hide his determination.
“It’s time to return. I cannot lead a process from the outside if our people are suffering,” he declared to the Wall Street Journal days before the three new failed attempts.
"She has said that she wants to come in, that she will enter by all means," Alandete summarized. "We need to see what other options she may have."
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