DONALD Trump says he gave Nicolas Maduro the option to surrender peacefully before he was dragged out of his bed by US special forces.
The Venezuelan dictator was reportedly asleep next to his wife during the daring US extraction operation and is now on his way to New York to face a criminal trial.
Maduro, 63, and his wife Cilia Flores were reportedly captured by Delta Force, the US military’s elite special mission unit, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The pair were “dragged from their bedroom” as they were sleeping, two sources told CNN.
Multiple explosions ripped through the capital at the same time as the US launched overnight strikes using Black Hawk helicopters and Chinooks.
The pair were piled into a military helicopter after being found inside a heavily-secured “fortress” thanks to constant monitoring by CIA spies, CBS News reports.
MADURO’S DOWNFALL
Venezuela leader captured & to stand trial in US as Trump hails strikes
Venezuela’s ruling party leader, Nahum Fernandez, said the pair were found inside their home which sits inside a military base.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump said: “He [Maduro] was in a house that was more like a fortress than a house.
“It had steel doors. It had what they call a safety space where it’s solid steel all around.
“He didn’t get that space closed. He was trying to get into it, but he got bumrushed so fast that he didn’t get into that.”
The president even said his men had blowtorches on them and steel cutting equipment should they had needed to break through the hideout.
“It’s just it was an amazing thing, the amazing job that these people did,” Trump went on to praise his team.
“There’s nobody else could have done anything like it.”
He says he watched the whole thing from his home in Mar-a-Lago as he said he felt like he was “watching a TV show”.
Maduro and his partner were indicted on several charges in New York, US attorney general Pam Bondi confirmed.
She said the Venezuelan president faces charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices as well as conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.
Bondi said: “They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
The pair were flown out of the country and taken to USS Iwo Jima – a huge aircraft carrier stationed in the Caribbean – and are now on their way to New York.
Maduro could appear in court as early as Monday.
Speaking after Maduro’s capture, US Vice President JD Vance said that the tyrant was given plenty of chances to step away from Venezuela’s presidency.
Vance said: “The president offered multiple off ramps, but was very clear throughout this process: the drug trafficking must stop, and the stolen oil must be returned to the United States.
“Maduro is the newest person to find out that President Trump means what he says.”
He went on to hit out at those claiming Maduro was illegally taken.
“And PSA for everyone saying this was “illegal”: Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism,” Vance added.
“You don’t get to avoid justice for drug trafficking in the United States because you live in a palace in Caracas.”
Trump has spent the past few months waging a “war on drugs” with Venezuela.
He has accused Maduro of running a “cartel” and flooding the US with narcotics – mainly cocaine and fentanyl – even placing a $50million bounty on his counterpart’s head.
From bus driver to captured president – who is Nicolas Maduro?
MADURO, 63, has been Venezuela’s president since 2013 when he took over from Hugo Chavez – widely considered to be his mentor.
Born in Caracas, the hard-left leader was a bus driver before he started his political career in Venezuela.
He became a trade union leader and then later served as Chavez’s foreign minister and vice president.
Maduro was narrowly elected president after Chavez died from cancer
Unlike Chavez, a hugely popular leader during his reign, Maduro is far from a man of the people.
He is widely considered an authoritarian leader and is seen by many in the West as a tyrant.
He was in charge when Venezuela’s economy collapsed in the 2010s, has brutally cracked down on any protesters and is accused of election rigging.
The US claims both the 2018 and 2024 national elections should be voided over the interference claims.
In recent years, tensions have ramped up between Maduro and America for several reasons, with drugs and migration being the main two.
In 2018, militants attempted to assassinate Maduro by sending explosives-laden drones over the top of a rally he was addressing on a Caracas avenue.
Maduro has been “emptying his prisons and insane asylums” to allow hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants to enter the US, Trump said earlier this year.
Trump said Washington will now have a say as to who runs Venezuela going forwards.
He said: “We’ll be involved in it very much as to who will govern the country.
“We can’t take a chance in letting somebody else run and just take over what he left.”
No one died in the operation but a few US forces were injured, Trump said.
The US president is due to hold a press conference at 11am (4pm UK time) at Mar-a-Lago with more details.
He reportedly gave the order to snatch the couple two days ago.