Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado finally made her highly secretive and intensely bizarre journey out of Venezuela, although she ended up missing the award ceremony in Oslo, as per The Hill. The entire operation was reportedly aided by the Trump administration to get the opposition leader safely out of the country, where she had been in hiding since January 9.
Machado’s escape was a dramatic, multi-stage process that took two months of planning. She first managed to get through 10 military checkpoints completely undetected. The next stage involved traveling across the Caribbean Sea to Curaçao. She was on a small fishing skiff with just two other people. This journey was incredibly dangerous because the waters have been ripe with attacks from the Trump administration in recent weeks.
The group helping Machado had to reach out to the U.S. military specifically to coordinate her path so they wouldn’t accidentally strike her boat. “We coordinated that she was going to leave by a specific area so that they would not blow up the boat,” said a person close to the operation. To add to the drama, flight-tracking data showed that a pair of U.S. Navy F-18s flew into the Gulf of Venezuela and circled for about 40 minutes, right when Machado was making her water crossing.
The Trump administration was reportedly aware of the entire operation, but the extent of its direct involvement remains unclear
The administration actually denied the accuracy of the military contact, and both the U.S. Navy and the Pentagon declined to comment on the matter. Regardless of the official stance, when Machado reached Curaçao, she met up with a private contractor supplied by the administration who specializes in extractions. This contractor was responsible for getting her the rest of the way to Oslo.
After stopping in Bangor, Maine, en route, Machado landed in Oslo on Wednesday. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it in time for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony itself. Her daughter had to accept the prestigious award on her behalf. Machado appeared early Thursday on a hotel balcony, sharing a video with a large crowd of supporters. “Oslo, here I am!!” she wrote in an Instagram caption for the video.
As you might expect, Venezuela’s current leadership snapped back fiercely at the escape and the U.S. involvement. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez called the whole thing a “cheap show.” Rodriguez claimed that the Trump administration’s repeated strikes against the Latin American country are simply rooted in attempts to gain oil.
The opposition leader is expected to make stops in Europe and Washington before eventually returning home. She is expected to return to Venezuela “when we believe the security conditions are right, and it won’t depend on whether or not the regime leaves.”
Published: Dec 12, 2025 01:30 pm