US intelligence agents had been secretly monitoring Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro's every move.
Since August, they were keeping tabs on "how he moved, where he lived, where he travelled, what he ate, what he wore", US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine said.
Despite his widely reported efforts to regularly change locations as tensions mounted with Washington, Mr Maduro's location was pinpointed.
And on early Saturday morning, the Venezuelan leader and his wife Cilia Flores were taken from a "heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas", US President Donald Trump said.
Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told the Associated Press that Mr Maduro and his wife were captured at their home within the Fuerte Tiuna military installation — a primary target of the US mission.
Satellite imagery shows the aftermath of US strikes across the vast military site, and damage to buildings tucked into the hills and thick surrounding forest.
Images show scale of destruction
Fuerte Tiuna was among the locations targeted in what the US called Operation Absolute Resolve.
It is Venezuela's largest military complex, housing defence ministries, equipment and underground tunnels and bunkers.
[map]Satellite images from US spatial intelligence firm Vantor on December 22, 2025, show an overview of the sprawling Fuerte Tiuna site with various buildings and military equipment.
The same location is seen with several buildings reduced to rubble after the US strikes on January 3.
The area is seen below with a closer view, exposing detail including at least six green-painted military trucks.
The next image provides a clearer scope of the scale of destruction at the scene after the US attacks.
The US operation included more than 150 military aircraft, which took off from land and sea, including fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, drones, and the helicopters that would form the crucial core of the mission.
The helicopters carrying the "extraction force" for Mr Maduro took off into the darkness, flying at just 33 metres above the surface of the ocean, General Caine said.
Fighter jets provided air cover while US satellite and cyber capabilities blocked Venezuelan radars.
"We had a fighter jet for every possible situation," Mr Trump told Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends.
The Pentagon confirmed the raid included powerful F-35 fighter jets and B-1 bombers.
Imagery from Vantor showed the precision of the strikes, with a gate security building located on a bend in the road, nestled among trees, wiped out.
Iria Puyosa, a senior research fellow at the Atlantic Council's Democracy+Tech Initiative, said Mr Maduro's regime was unable to mount any effective defensive military actions.
"Its usually strong communication apparatus failed catastrophically during the first 12 hours following the US operation to take Maduro from his residence inside Fuerte Tiuna, the principal military base of the Venezuelan army," she said.
"The military command-and-control chains were clearly disrupted."
Maduro captured from 'fortress'
US special forces troops reached Mr Maduro's safe house at 02:01 local timeon Saturday while being fired upon, General Caine said.
One of the helicopters was hit, but was still able to fly.
Social media videos posted by residents showed a convoy of helicopters flying over the city at low altitude.
Mr Trump described the compound as a "very highly guarded … fortress".
"They just broke in, and they broke into places that were not really able to be broke into, you know, steel doors that were put there for just this reason," he said.
"They got taken out in a matter of seconds."
The 63-year-old and his wife were taken to the USS Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship off the coast of Venezuela before being flown to the US and placed in a New York detention centre.
He is set to face drugs and weapons charges in Manhattan federal court.
The attack followed months of escalating pressure by the Trump administration, which has built up naval forces in the waters off South America.
Since early September, the US has carried out deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean.
The raid, which involved strikes on several locations around Caracas, was condemned by numerous countries, including some US allies.
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the operation "a dangerous precedent".
The Trump administration has said it does not recognise Mr Maduro, in power since 2013, as Venezuela's legitimate president.
Washington has also accused Mr Maduro of leading the alleged "Cartel of the Suns", which it declared a terrorist organisation late last year.
He and his government have vehemently denied this claim.
ABC/wires
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