Dramatic rescue gets Venezuelan leader Machado to Norway for Nobel Prize

Rescue operation to extract Leader of the Venezuelan opposition Maria Corinna Machado and her transfer to Norway in time to accept her Nobel Peace Prize involved a complex series of different complications and components on land, sea and air.

The mission, dubbed Operation Golden Dynamite, was led by Brian Stern, a US Special Forces veteran and founder of the Tampa-based Gray Bull Rescue Foundation, which specializes in high-risk rescue missions and evacuations, particularly from conflict and disaster areas.

Getting her out of Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro considers her a fugitive, involved disguise, deception, navigating choppy seas and arranging flight options.

“The Maduro regime views it the same way we view Osama bin Laden,” Stern told Fox News. “That level of stalking, if you will.”

The leader of the American secret team describes the “dangerous” mission to rescue the Venezuelan opposition leader

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to a protest before President Nicolas Maduro’s inauguration for his third term on Friday, in Caracas, Venezuela, January 9, 2025. (Maxwell Briceno/Reuters)

Machado has been hiding in Venezuela since Maduro won a hotly contested election last year and has not been seen in public for months.

Stern confirmed that the US government did not participate in the operation.

His team was building a presence in CaribbeanVenezuela and the neighboring island of Aruba in preparation for operations in the South American region.

Stern said the biggest challenge was getting Machado out of the country even though she was a well-known figure there. In order to get her from her home to the “landing site on the beach,” his team reportedly did “all sorts of things designed to create a little bit of confusion.”

“Anything we could think of that we thought could hide her face…was used.” Stern said. “Anything we can think of, its digital signature, or its physical signature. On top of that, we did some deception operations on the ground. We made some noise in some places with the aim of making people think that something was happening that wasn’t happening.”

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Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro waves a sword said to belong to independence hero Simón Bolívar during a civil-military event at the Military Academy in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, November 25, 2025. (Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

Stern recounted that the naval operation began difficult. Of the two boats deployed for the mission, the ship that actually recovered Machado reportedly lost its GPS in choppy seas and suffered a mechanical failure that delayed the operation. The team was forced to continue “in the dead of night” in “total darkness”, sailing in seas so rough that one of Stern’s experienced operators vomited for nine hours straight.

Getting to the meeting point added another layer of difficulty. Stern’s boat and Machado’s ship had to find each other Black seas Maintaining radio silence to avoid detection, they eventually locate each other by flashlight.

Stern said he had to remain cautious, fearing the approaching boat was a trap set by Venezuelan forces. To make sure it was safe to proceed, his larger ship circled Machado’s boat and shined lights on the crew.

After Stern physically pulled Machado into his boat, he then alerted the rest of the team that Machado had been secured: “Jackpot, jackpot, jackpot.”

“We are now on the run with Maria Corina Machado, the most wanted woman in the Western Hemisphere, on my boat,” he said.

“I have the most wanted person in the Western Hemisphere and I’m trying to move him,” Stern said. “Personally, she is A hero of mine. She is a hero of mine. “I’ve been tracking her for years.”

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Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado waves at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway, early Thursday, December 11, 2025. (Liz Aserud/NTB Scanpix via AP)

Once in international waters, the new concern was to avoid any appearance that they had kidnapped a Venezuelan, which would have given the government any justification for the attack.

“They are lying. They could have killed us for any reason,” Stern said. “We are in the middle of the ocean and there is no one around to see the truth… We are afraid, we are nervous, we are on the run and we fail to make it to the appointment.”

Stern ordered his boat captain to drive at full speed and not stop for anything, for fear of prosecution by the Venezuelan regime.

“I told him, ‘Boatman, I don’t care, I don’t care who comes,’” Stern said. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop. I don’t care, I don’t care who. Don’t stop at all. Let them come after us if they have to. We have to get to the ground.”

At some point during the escape, two F-18 fighter jets It reportedly flew overhead. Stern described that moment as a potential complication, because they couldn’t determine whether the planes were hostile or friendly, though he noted they were likely not part of the Navy’s coordination.

“There’s an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean that takes off every twenty minutes,” Stern said. “I don’t know.” “I can tell you that no one in the Navy said, ‘Don’t worry, brother, we sent two F-18s to protect you.'”

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The naval team succeeded in delivering Machado to safety. Stern said his team also prepared for the possibility of air extraction, but that plan was abandoned after a last-minute change by Machado. Instead, the final Trip to Norway It was arranged through her personal network using a friend’s private jet, culminating in her safe arrival.

While Gray Bull Rescue has conducted operations in high-risk environments such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Haiti, Stern said extracting Machado was a unique challenge, calling it the most “overwhelmingly” complex mission in the organization’s 800-mission history.