Reports: Venezuela's Thug-in-Chief Diosdado Cabello in Talks with U.S. Before Maduro Arrest

Venezuela’s socialist regime on Sunday rejected the “malicious information” allegedly contained in a report published by Reuters claiming that the Trump administration was in discussions with strongman Diosdado Cabello months before the U.S. law enforcement operation to arrest Nicolás Maduro.

The Venezuelan regime rejected the report’s contents in a post made on its brand-new “Miraflores Right Now” social media account — which appears to “emulate” that of the White House’s Rapid Response 47 social media presence. Miraflores is the Venezuelan presidential palace.

“We categorically deny the malicious information published on social media about alleged secret conspiratorial conversations, which seeks to divide the country’s political leadership and undermine the prestige and revolutionary integrity of Diosdado Cabello,” the regime’s social media account read.

Reuters’ report, which the Venezuelan regime condemned, claims that, according to “multiple people familiar with the matter,” officials in the Trump administration had been engaged in discussions with Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello — a man widely considered to be the most dangerous strongman in the Venezuelan socialist regime, and who is currently in charge of the regime’s brutally repressive apparatus. Cabello is actively wanted by U.S. authorities on multiple narco-terrorism charges and the U.S. has a $25 million bounty out for any information that can lead to his arrest and/or conviction.

“The communications, which have not been previously reported, are critical to the Trump administration’s efforts to control the situation inside Venezuela,” Reuters’ report read. “If Cabello decides to unleash the forces that he controls, it could foment the kind of chaos that U.S. President Donald Trump wants to avoid and threaten interim President Delcy Rodriguez’s grip on power, according to a source briefed on U.S. concerns.”

According to Reuters, the alleged conversations took place months before the January 3, 2026, U.S. law enforcement operation in Caracas that led to the successful capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores — both of whom are presently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn undergoing trial proceedings on multiple narco-terrorism charges. Cabello appears listed as one of the co-conspirators who benefited from Nicolás Maduro’s drug trafficking schemes in a recently unsealed indictment.

“The Venezuelan minister has been in contact with the Trump administration both directly and via intermediaries, one person familiar with the conversations said,” Reuters’ report read. “All of the sources were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive internal government communications with Cabello.”

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Cabello has not publicly commented on the contents of Reuters’ report at press time.

Reuters’ report comes days after “acting President” Delcy Rodríguez met with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Ratcliffe in Caracas on Thursday. Ratcliffe reportedly said that he traveled to Venezuela at the direction of President Donald Trump “to deliver the message that the United States looks forward to an improved working relationship.”

Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president, was sworn in as “acting president” in the hours following Maduro’s capture. President Trump has told reporters over the past days that she is cooperating with the United States and is in close communication with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Last week, President Trump announced that he had a “very good” conversation with Rodríguez, who described her conversation with Trump as “long and cordial” and conducted in a “spirit of mutual respect in which we discussed a bilateral agenda for the benefit of our peoples, as well as pending issues between our governments.”

Locally, however, Rodríguez maintains a seemingly conflicted stance toward the United States and has claimed that she is “in charge” of the ruling socialist regime. On Thursday, she delivered the Venezuelan executive’s 2025 yearly report to the National Assembly on behalf of Maduro. During her speech, she claimed that “if I have to go to Washington, I’ll go standing up, not crawling.” Rodríguez also claimed that there is a “stain” in the relationship between both countries.

In the immediate hours following Maduro’s capture, several international outlets suggested that Rodríguez may have “betrayed” Maduro to Washington. Last week, the Spanish newspaper ABC claimed that Rodríguez allegedly met with CIA and Russian Foreign Ministry officials in Doha, Qatar, at some point between September and Christmas Day. According to sources cited by ABC, those who “witnessed” Rodríguez’s meetings in Doha were not able to specify the nature of the purported meetings.

In October 2025, Rodríguez denied claims by the Miami Herald in a report asserting that Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge, who presently leads the National Assembly, allegedly negotiated with the United States the departure of Maduro from power.

Hours after Maduro was captured, his son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, claimed in a livestream that history will reveal who the alleged “traitors” were who helped the United States arrest his father.

“History will tell who the traitors were, history will reveal it, we will see. We must focus on moving our country forward, raising [Hugo] Chávez’s flags, and bringing Nicolás Maduro Moro and Cilia Flores back safe and sound,” Maduro Guerra said in his message, but did not disclose further details on who were the purported “traitors” he was referring to.

Like Diosdado Cabello, the unsealed indictment against Nicolás Maduro lists Nicolás Maduro Guerra as one of the conspirators who benefited from the now-deposed socialist dictator’s drug trafficking schemes.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.