Nicolas Maduro grew paranoid over security for the last few months amid escalation with the US and was rotating his sleeping beds and using several cellphones to avoid his location being tracked. Maduro enlisted more Cuban officers into his intelligence and reduced the number of scheduled events and live broadcasts. He was last seen on an interview that was aired on Venezuelan state TV on New Year’s Day and in that interview he called US a brother country. The US military captured Maduro and his wife, facing the least resistance. CIA sources inside the Venezuelan government reportedly helped the US military track Maduro. President Donald Trump revealed that Maduro and his wife were picked straight from their bed. It was a highly protected palace and it even had a safety bunker made with steel. But Maduro did not get the time to get inside the bunker, Trump said, adding that the US military had a blowtorch to penetrate the steel, but that was not needed.
Phone-less Cuban agents were protecting Maduro; CIA tracking since August
As the tension with the US escalated, Maduro revamped his security team and was surrounded by Cuban agents with no electronic devices. But all this failed as CIA was on the ground tracking Maduro even moments before he was captured. The CIA had a group of officers on the ground in Venezuela working clandestinely beginning in August, according to a person familiar with the agency’s work. The officers gathered information about Maduro’s “pattern of life” and movements, the NYT report said. US had announced $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture, and that helped.A senior US official told NYT that the CIA and special operations analysts had Maduro “wired” — meaning precisely located — from early on in the planning of the operation.
