- All doubts about the veracity of the Maduro government’s claims regarding the failed incursion were laid to rest in the afternoon when a Venezuelan digital news outlet (@FactoresdePoder) published a video in which Goudreau claimed responsibility for the “amphibious raid”, and hinted that other operations were ongoing. Goudreau was joined by a man calling himself Javier Quintero Nieto, who said that the goal of the operation was to detain the leadership of the Maduro government and liberate the country’s political prisoners.
The same news outlet shared images of a contract that appears to have been signed by both Goudreau (on behalf of Silvercorp) and opposition leader Juan Guaido on October 16, 2019 — worth a staggering $212.9 million dollars. Pages 1 out of 8 and 8 out of 8 are missing from the set that the outlet shared, and so we do not know for certain every piece of information that was included in this document, including exactly what services Silvercorp would provide.
Shortly thereafter, Goudreau was interviewed by Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo for Factores de Poder. In the bizarre interview, Goudreau said that despite having signed a contract with Guaido, “the opposition hurt us more than they helped us” in part because they never paid him. Goudreau said that the opposition failed to even pay him the $1.5 million retainer that he had asked for, but that he nevertheless decided to continue to render the services of his company because he is a “freedom fighter” and “this is what [freedom fighters] do.”
When he was pressed by Poleo to explain why launching an amphibious operation across open waters instead of attempting to infiltrate via the border with Colombia, Goudreau replied:
Are you familiar with Alexander the Great? The Battle of Gaugamela. Completely outnumbered. He struck to the heart of the enemy, and he won.
This was unbelievable, but I should've expected a disaster, given what I'd already heard, months ago. We'll get to that in a minute. First... I mean this from the bottom of my heart (despite poor attempts at humor in other paragraphs of this comment), and I'm tagging ooli, too: So many actions of our country right now are incredibly embarrassing, and not representative of the majority of Americans. I apologize. Now, who wants to play Rudy Roulette??? Don't click the wrong Rudy: