Venezuelan exiles and leaders in the community have expressed in the days following the arrest of former dictator Nicolás Maduro that the socialist regime’s structure remains intact, urging the United States to detain the elite who continue to control the country.
In particular, Venezuelan exiles have called for the arrest of Delcy Rodríguez, the acting dictator following Maduro’s arrest, and Diosdado Cabello, considered Maduro’s true second-in-command and the head of the paramilitary gangs used to repress, torture, and kill political dissidents.
President Donald Trump announced on Saturday morning that U.S. forces had entered Venezuela to aid in the arrest of Maduro and his wife and “first combatant” Cilia Flores. Both face multiple criminal charges in the United States, most of them linked to narco-terrorism. Law enforcement has long identified Maduro as the head of the Cartel de los Soles, an international cocaine-trafficking syndicate run through the Venezuelan armed forces, of which Maduro was commander-in-chief.
Maduro became head of the Venezuelan government following the death of dictator Hugo Chávez. He lost his legitimacy as president in 2018, when he held a sham election and the National Assembly used its constitutional power to declare a “rupture in the democratic order.” He retained a stranglehold on power, however, and held several other rounds of sham elections, most recently in 2024.
With the imprisonment of Maduro in New York, Venezuelans took the streets of dozens of cities around the world to celebrate. The socialist regime Maduro led, however, remains intact — a reality many Venezuelans urged Washington to consider.
In a statement published on Saturday, José Antonio Colina, the president of the Organization of Politically Persecuted Venezuelans in Exile (VEPPEX), noted that the highest ranks of chavismo remained in power and, as such, a threat to “regional security.” While the statement celebrated the capture of Maduro, it expressed concern that the regime may survive Maduro’s loss.
“We cannot consider this victory definite while key figures of the regime remain free or unaccountable,” Colina wrote. Among those listed as a threat were Rodríguez, her brother and top lawmaker Jorge, head regime thug Cabello, and the nation’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López.
“Their freedom represents a persistent threat to peace in Venezuela, democracy, and regional security,” Colina, a former lieutenant in the Venezuelan military, wrote.
Speaking in an interview on Tuesday with the AM radio station La Poderosa 990, Colina suggested that eliminating Maduro while leaving Cabello free could result in no significant change in the status quo in Venezuela.
“In my mind… I always thought that when they would neutralize Nicolás Maduro, when they extract him, they would also take Diosdado Cabello since he is really the strongman of the revolution,” he explained. “At the time that they take Nicolás Maduro and it starts circulating on social media that Diosdado Cabello was eliminated, obviously I said, well now the transition is really starting in Venezuela. But when I see that Diosdado Cabello makes his first public appearance with police behind him, I entered disagreement with what is happening.”
Colina blamed the Venezuelan opposition for not having “prepared to be a government,” leaving Washington with no alternative to elevating Rodríguez and the remaining cohort.
In celebrations this week around the world, Venezuelans expressed to media similar concerns.
“We don’t want Delcy Rodríguez to continue that same rule that we have struggled so much against,” a woman identified as Jani told CNN en Español in Madrid. “It’s been too many years, they finished with the country. I voted for Edmundo González and I want him to run the country.”
Edmundo González, a former diplomat, was the official opposition candidate in the 2024 sham election. The movement behind him, led by opposition leader María Corina Machado, organized ground teams to count votes at polling sites and proved that González defeated Maduro by an overwhelming margin. Maduro forced González into exile in Spain shortly thereafter.
“As long as there is no appropriate transition — because Maduro and his wife are out but there are other leaders who are still not out and it is too precipitated to assume that that will happen,” another Venezuelan in Spain, Ezequiel García, told CNN en Español, “if it happens it would be good, as long as a transition happens… there is no greater hope.”
In Peru, the outlet Peru21 spoke to Venezuelans in Lima who similarly named Cabello as a particular obstacle to peace.
“In the middle of the meeting, the foreigners [Venezuelans] also demanded the capture of Diosdado Cabello, who they pointed out as one of the key figures in power in Venezuela,” Peru21 reported on Saturday. “They consider that his arrest would be a necessary step to guarantee a true process of change.”
“We need all those people to leave,” unnamed Venezuelans similarly told the Honduran outlet Proceso in that country. “Diosdado Cabello, Vladimir Padrino, Delcy Rodríguez, those people are bad, they have to be taken out so that we can assure our return to the country.”
The repressive Maduro apparatus moved to silence any attempts to overthrow the socialist regime almost immediately after his address. Rodríguez enacted a decree on Tuesday that commands the arrest of anyone suspected of agreeing with the Maduro arrest.
“National, state, and municipal police organs should immediately pursue the search and capture of all persons on national territory involved in the promotion or support of the armed attack by the United States of America,” the decree read.
Cabello, who had maintained some distance from Rodríguez throughout the weekend, appeared on the Chinese social media application TikTok fully armed and surrounded with state security thugs on Monday evening, chanting “loyal always, traitors never!”
@diosdadopsuv Desde Caricuao #venezuela en total normalidad
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