The Venezuelan government announced on Monday that it had halted inbound flights from neighboring Colombia, citing an alleged incursion by “mercenaries” said to be plotting to undermine the legislative and regional elections scheduled for Sunday.
“We gave instructions that all flights coming from Colombia to Venezuela be immediately suspended,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello told a press conference, adding that 38 people had been arrested, including 17 foreigners.
The government of authoritarian Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose reelection last year was rejected by much of the international community as fraudulent, frequently claims to be the target of US and Colombian-backed coup plots.
Cabello linked the latest group of alleged mercenaries to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has called for a boycott of the May 25 legislative and gubernatorial elections.
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According to the minister, those detained had allegedly plotted coordinated assaults targeting foreign embassies, medical facilities, and law enforcement agencies. He stated that while the suspects had entered Venezuela via Colombia—some by air, others through land routes—their origins traced back to undisclosed third countries.
In a Zoom interview with AFP last week, opposition figure María Corina Machado—who has been in hiding since the contested presidential election in July 2024—called for a sweeping boycott of Sunday’s vote, predicting that polling stations would be left “completely deserted.”
The opposition maintains that internal tallies from the July election indicate a decisive win for its candidate, former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, who fled to Spain following a government-led clampdown on political dissent.