The surprise raid by U.S. armed forces and law enforcement agencies in Caracas, Venezuela had observers around the world scouring social media and news for updates on an operation that saw Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro and his wife captured and flown to the United States to face criminal charges.
The Trump administration initially offered few details about the attack and reportedly declined to notify allies or the bipartisan Gang of Eight in Congress ahead of time. The information vacuum regarding the U.S. action and the motivations behind them was quickly filled by online accounts posting realistic looking but fake images and videos, right wing disinformation artists connecting the operation to debunked conspiracies of Venezuela remotely manipulating U.S. voting machines and widespread messaging in online Spanish-speaking groups depicting the U.S. as an aggressive, imperialist power seeking to control the resources of other countries.
In the early morning hours after the operation, fake imagery and media quickly flooded social media. A grainy image falsely depicted Maduro in a suit being escorted off an aircraft by camo-clad DEA agents, only for the White House to later stage and post its own (real) perp walk of Maduro online.
Guyte McCord, CEO of disinformation research firm Graphika, told CyberScoop they are observing high volumes of fairly standard activity online, from AI generated videos to ‘recycled’ footage from past conflicts being rebranded as current events.
“What we’re seeing so far is quite typical for high-attention geopolitical events: tactics designed to shape narratives and generate engagement while the ground truth remains fluid,” McCord said in a statement.
In the comment section of that White House post, users quickly posted their own realistic looking AI-altered videos, inserting other world leaders like Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Maduro’s place, or depicting a distressed Maduro begging for his life in English while surrounded by DEA officials. A series of mislabeled and fake videos collected by the BBC’s Shayan Sardarizadeh include other depictions of Maduro’s capture that were generated through AI and spread online.
Narrative setting focused on oil, U.S. imperialism
Groups like the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas track narratives in Latin American online spaces. The nonprofit typically monitors around 3,300 Spanish-language WhatsApp and Telegram groups, but expanded to roughly 100,000 groups to capture additional English-speaking channels discussing the Venezuela raid.
According to Cristina Tardáguila, an analyst and disinformation researcher at DDIA, the early narrative that gained widespread traction after the raid was that the US intervention “is a thinly veiled mission to seize Venezuela’s oil wealth.”
“These posts claim that President Trump has already designated American companies to manage the country’s petroleum reserves, something he affirmed,” wrote Tardáguila. “This theme characterizes the operation as ‘theft’ and ‘robbery,’ dismissing humanitarian or democratic justifications.”
Adam Darrah, a former CIA analyst who spent eight years tracking Russian disinformation operations, told CyberScoop that both Russia and China have long maintained close relations with Venezuela, viewing the country “as a beachhead into the United States’ very powerful sphere in influence here in the Western hemisphere.”
“You have these great powers going and competing for hearts and minds, and that’s what I’m seeing,” said Darrah, now vice president of intelligence at cybersecurity firm ZeroFox. “I’m seeing three adversarial governments, two of which are trying to maintain a beachhead” that is “gone, at least for now.”
After the attack, Darrah said he has seen mouthpieces on both sides scramble to respond, leaning heavily on past narratives that portray the United States. as an imperialist aggressor, themes that were refined during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.
But Tardáguila also acknowledged that the administration has not put forth clear messaging, with Trump himself saying Venezuela stole its oil reserves from the U.S.
Compounding this, she also noted that “President Donald Trump did not cite human rights or democracy in his press conference” following the attack.
Darrah told CyberScoop that like most disinformation, he believes the AI generated videos being spread around Venezuela and Maduro are more about reinforcing existing beliefs and keeping supporters in line, rather than persuade new people or fool skeptics.
“I have family members that clearly believe in AI-generated content…as long as the [content] makes them feel better about hating the thing they hate or loving the thing they love,” he said. “They don’t really care that it’s poorly or well done.”
A conspiracy theory lurches back to life
Domestically, some allies of President Trump quickly tied the Caracas attack to a long-running conspiracy about the 2020 election involving Venezuela and U.S. voting machines.
Benny Johnson, a right-wing activist who has promoted claims that Dominion and Smartmatic were involved in a Venezuelan plot to alter vote counts for Joe Biden, suggested the U.S. targeted Maduro in part because he “knows where all the bodies are buried” with regards to the 2020 election.
“This is why you see the globalists around the world bricking in their pants,” Johnson said. “They’re terrified because Venezuela was ground zero for election theft.”
The Trump campaign lost dozens of lawsuits claiming fraud following the 2020 election and media outlets like Fox News, NewsMax as well as Trump campaign lawyers Rudi Giuliani and Sidney Powell eventually settled multibillion dollar lawsuits brought by Smartmatic and Dominion and publicly acknowledged they had no proof for their claims.
While administration officials have described the Caracas incursion as a law enforcement operation and have not cited the 2020 election, Trump himself posted a two-minute video clip without comment early Monday of people alleging Dominion voting machines were manipulated in the election to favor Biden.