“Jackpot, jackpot, jackpot. Objective: golden dynamite,” is heard in the video released this Friday of what was the clandestine operation that allowed opposition leader María Corina Machado to leave Venezuela on December 9 to travel to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize.
The images, with a watermark from Gray Bull Rescue, the group of contractors specialized in extractions and rescues that designed and executed the plan to transfer Machado, show the moment in which the boat with which the opposition leader left Venezuela meets Gray Bull’s boat, on the high seas and in the middle of the night.
“Hello Maria, my name is Bryan, nice to meet you, I’ve got you,” Bryan Stern, the founder of the group, can be heard saying through the noise of the wind, as both boats approach. “Hello!” María Corina shouts before exchanging a few words about the luggage she is carrying with her.
“Everything is so wet and so cold”
Immediately afterwards, the montage shows the Venezuelan politician, clearly distinguishable in a cap and a black jacket, speaking to the camera: “I am María Corina Machado, I am alive, I am safe and very grateful to Gray Bull.”
Stern said in December that Machado’s transfer operation lasted between 15 and 16 hours and involved first transferring her by land from where the Venezuelan woman was kept secret to a boat that left the coast of the South American country to a secret point on the high seas and then being transported to a port in the Caribbean where she took a plane to Oslo.
“It was dangerous. It was terrifying. The sea conditions were ideal for us, but they were not waters you want to be in, the higher the waves, the harder it is for the radar to see. That’s how it works,” Stern told the CBS channel at the time.
The video also shows the initial moment of the operation, when the group of contractors left Curacao still during daylight to go to meet Machado. “We have been in the region for a month working in Venezuela, but this operation is the big enchilada, getting it from where it is to where it needs to be is clearly a challenge,” Stern tells the camera on the boat.
The images later show navigation in total darkness with the help of radars and with quite a lot of waves.
Then, over a montage of some photos of Machado and selfies with Stern, the “Jackpot, jackpot, jackpot. Goal: golden dynamite” is heard celebrating the success of the mission.
At that time, Machado had been underground in Venezuela for almost a year after having led the movement opposing Chavismo and Nicolás Maduro in the July 2024 presidential elections.
Thanks to the operation, the politician arrived in Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to her for that leadership and that Machado gave on January 15 to the American president, Donald Trump, in the meeting that the two held at the White House.
