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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Maduro’s Capture Deals Blow to Cuba’s Intelligence Service
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Maduro’s Capture Deals Blow to Cuba’s Intelligence Service

January 6, 2026 at 6:17 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“For decades, Cuban intelligence agents were Cold War stars, dismantling plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, recruiting senior U.S. government officials and protecting heads of state from Angola to Panama,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro—one of the Cuban intelligence services’ most valuable charges—punctured its aura of invincibility. U.S. elite forces descended on Maduro’s compound at around 2 a.m. local time Saturday, grabbing him and his wife before they could escape to a safe room, said Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“The Cuban government said 32 officers from its Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Interior Ministry, which runs intelligence services, were killed in the line of duty as part of Maduro’s security detail.”

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goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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