U.S. Agent Tried to Recruit Maduro’s Pilot

A U.S. federal agent, Edwin Lopez, secretly tried to recruit Nicolás Maduro’s chief pilot to divert the president’s plane so U.S. authorities could seize him, offering money in a tense airport-hangar meeting after which the pilot gave Lopez his cell number. Lopez continued to court the pilot over an encrypted messaging app for 16 months—even after retiring—and allegedly attempted additional maneuvers to unsettle Maduro about the pilot’s loyalties. The episode comes amid an escalated U.S. campaign under President Trump that deployed forces to the Caribbean, carried out strikes that killed dozens, authorized CIA covert actions in Venezuela, and doubled the bounty on Maduro’s capture. Separately, U.S. authorities sought and obtained seizures of Venezuelan-linked aircraft at U.S. request in Santo Domingo: a Dassault Falcon 900EX in May 2024 and a Dassault Falcon 2000EX in February 2025. Reporting from multiple outlets frames the affair as part of both covert recruitment attempts and overt legal and military pressure used by the U.S. against Maduro’s government.