In the dead of night and wearing a wig to disguise her identity, Maria Corina Machado embarked on a perilous, clandestine journey to escape Venezuela.
After passing through 10 military checkpoints undetected over a 10 hour period, she reached the coast and boarded a small, wooden fishing skiff to cross the Caribbean Sea towards neighbouring Curaçao as US Navy F-18 fighter jets circled overhead, multiple US outlets have reported.
Bryan Stern, a US special forces veteran and the CEO of the private US rescues and extractions company Grey Bull Rescue, said he met her at sea.
He told CBS News he helped to ferry her along the next leg of her journey to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway's capital Oslo.
"No-one's blood pressure was low, throughout any phase of this operation, including mine," Mr Stern said.
"She's the first person that we've ever rescued that has billboards with her face all over it in a country, where there's protests in her favour."
The entire operation, named "Golden Dynamite", took 16 hours under a night sky illuminated by "very little moon", involved a discreet network of people coordinating translations, intelligence, logistics and unofficial collaboration with the US military, he said.
"This was our most high threat and high stakes mission we have ever done," Grey Bull Rescue said in a statement posted on LinkedIn.
"The maritime domain is the most dangerous operating environment paired with her profile and the high counterintelligence threat … This was a mission impossible."
From Curaçao, where the boat docked, a private jet flew north to the United States and then to Oslo, where Ms Machado was photographed sitting inside the cabin.
At its conclusion, Ms Machado stepped foot in the Norwegian capital of Oslo — more than 8,300 kilometres away from her home.
Labelled a "fugitive" by the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro Moros, she was set to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
It was also the first time she had been seen publicly in almost a year, after living in hiding in fear of her safety under the Maduro regime.
How Venezuela's 'Enemy Number 1' became its 'Iron Lady'
More than a year before Operation Golden Dynamite was launched, Ms Machado stood atop a truck in central Caracas surrounded by crowds of supporters who were draped in the nation's flag and chanting the Spanish word for freedom — "libertad".
It was six days after Venezuelans voted in the 2024 presidential election. With a palm pressed to her chest, Ms Machado demanded the election result be overturned in the wake of incumbent Mr Moros declaring victory.
The Venezuelan opposition claimed he lost in a landslide but illegitimately held onto power.
"We have already won the election. Now comes a new stage," she told the crowd, which responded with a cacophony of cheers, applause and hoots from horns.
"Never has the [Maduro] regime been as weak as today."
Days later, the firebrand politician — who the Maduro regime banned from participating in the election as a candidate — would vanish.
She was forced into hiding, fearful that her life and freedom were at risk under the Maduro regime, her political party Vente Venezuela said.
Prior to this week, she was seen in public only once — during a short appearance ahead of Mr Maduro's inauguration, at a protest rally. She was briefly detained.
Every few days over the past 16 months, she released short political messages to supporters on the party's YouTube channel or appeared on a live news program — always in front of a nondescript white background that gave away no hints about her whereabouts.
Dressed in jeans and a black puffer jacket, Ms Machado emerged onto a balcony at Oslo's Grand Hotel and waved to supporters before heading downstairs and joining the crowd.
It was a moment in a political career that stretches back 20 years.
The daughter of a prominent steel industry businessman and a psychologist, Ms Machado was born in 1967 into an upper-class family in Caracas.
She attended an elite girls' school in the Venezuelan capital, and later a boarding school in the United States, before returning to Caracas for university to study industrial engineering.
The 58-year-old lived her early adulthood in a country being dominated by the meteoric rise of a former military lieutenant colonel, Hugo Chavez, who would go on to become Venezuela's first socialist president.
Elected in 1999 and later buoyed by steadily rising crude oil prices amid a decades-long economic crisis, Mr Chavez led an assertive and polarising 14-year regime.
His presidency resulted in an alleged dismantling of Venezuelan democracy, accusations of human rights abuses and a systemic process of repression, according to Human Rights Watch.
In 2004, Ms Machado told The Washington Post that Mr Chavez's leadership and a chance visit to a centre housing orphans and the homeless ignited her political passion for change in Venezuela and sparked an idea to establish Sumate — a volunteer organisation devoted to promoting free and fair elections.
"Something clicked … I had this unsettling feeling that I could not stay at home and watch the country get polarised and collapse," she told the outlet.
"It was a choice of ballots over bullets."
Her political transition occurred in the wake of "Chavismo" — the name given to Mr Chavez's socialist ideology — and led to national newspapers labelling her as "Enemy Number One", the Washington Post reported.
She went on to secure a seat in the Venezuelan National Assembly in 2010 and became a vocal opponent of Mr Maduro after his rise to the presidency in 2013 following the death of Mr Chavez.
In the 12 years he has been in power, Mr Maduro has been accused of illegally consolidating authoritarian political power and overseeing alleged crimes against humanity, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Associated Press reported she was also a fierce critic of former opposition leader Juan Guaidó during his failed 2019 attempt to seize power from Mr Maduro.
It was not until 2023 that Ms Machado was a presidential contender, by winning the opposition's candidacy election with the support of about 93 per cent of voters, according to results issued by the National Primary Commission.
Amid the government's election ban against her, Ms Machado hand-picked former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia — who had never previously run for public office — as the opposition's presidential candidate to stand in her place.
The opposition claimed Mr Urrutia defeated Mr Maduro with at least 70 per cent of the vote in his favour.
The Maduro government rejected that, and Venezuela's electoral council — which is loyal to the president's socialist party — announced he would maintain power because he had secured a 51 per cent victory, according to its tally.
A month later and two days before Ms Machado stood atop the truck in Caracas at the rally, the US Biden administration recognised Mr Urrutia as the electoral victor and the country's new president.
The disputed election sparked protests in Venezuela against Mr Maduro.
During the unrest, the government arrested more than 2,000 people, including many of Ms Machado's political allies, who it claimed had plotted to oust Mr Maduro, the Associated Press reported.
The support for Ms Machado also extended into the newly-elected Trump administration this year.
In April, Time magazine named her among the 100 most influential people of 2025 alongside a profile written by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who advocated for her inclusion.
"María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan Iron Lady, is the personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism," Mr Rubio wrote.
"Undeterred by formidable challenges, María Corina has never backed down from her mission of fighting for a free, fair, and democratic Venezuela.
"Her principled leadership is a beacon of hope, making our region and our world a better place."
That endorsement came at the same time Donald Trump was increasing pressure on Mr Maduro, who the White House alleges is the quasi leader of the Cártel de los Soles — a network of drugs traffickers accused of importing narcotics into the US.
Mr Maduro has always denied any involvement in crime and has repeatedly claimed the US is pursuing regime change in a bid to control Venezuela's natural resources, according to Reuters.
Days of mystery end in cheers and an anthem
Ms Machado's arrival in Oslo was shrouded in mystery for days ahead of the Nobel award ceremony, with only her closest confidantes aware of whether she would be attending.
On Tuesday, a press conference where Ms Machado was expected to speak was cancelled because her whereabouts remained unknown.
The Nobel Committee held its Peace Prize award ceremony on Wednesday, but chairperson Jørgen Watne Frydnes said Ms Machado had not arrived in time to receive the honour in person.
Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the prize in her place. The Committee also played an audio recording it said was of Ms Machado moments before she boarded a flight to Oslo.
On Wednesday night, local time, Mr Frydnes confirmed she had landed and photographs were released showing her on a red and grey private jet with the tail number XA-FUF at Oslo Gardermoen Airport.
Flightradar24 data from the past week showed the aircraft , with the same tail number, had flown between multiple locations.
- Monday, December 8 (US time): Ms Machado made her way from the Venezuelan capital Caracas to a coastal village before boarding a boat to Curaçao, about 60km north across the Caribbean Sea, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
- Tuesday, December 9 (US time): A private jet, with the same tail number, that had been in Miami in the US for two days flies to Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao.
- Wednesday, December 10 (US time): The same plane flies from Willemstad to Bangor International Airport, in the US state of Maine, with a 50-minute stopover before the jet headed to Oslo.
[DW Flight Route]After 2am on December 11, local time in Norway, Ms Machado emerged smiling on the balcony of Oslo's Grand Hotel to a chorus of cheers, chants and the Venezuelan national anthem sung by dozens of supporters below her.
"I want you all back in Venezuela," she said later, as she greeted people with hugs, waves and selfies.
Machado's vision for Venezuela
Ms Machado advocates for centre-right liberal political ideals such as the privatisation of state-owned entities and the creation of improved welfare initiatives to help the poor, according to Reuters.
Amid the growing tensions between the Maduro regime and the US, Ms Machado penned a "Freedom Manifesto" last month in which she detailed her vision for how the country could rebuild if Mr Maduro was removed from power.
"Let us relaunch a free society, in which our government serves, and the state's primary purpose is to safeguard the natural rights of all Venezuelans," she wrote.
"The time has come for every Venezuelan family to be united again, forever, in our land.
"A new Venezuela is emerging from the ashes, renewed in spirit and united in purpose, like a phoenix reborn — fierce, radiant, and unstoppable."
In her speech delivered by her daughter in Oslo, Ms Machado reiterated the message.
"What we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey: that to have a democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom," Ms Sosa said on behalf of her mother.
"A people who choose freedom contribute not only to themselves, but to humanity."
On Thursday in Oslo, she told reporters she intended to return to her homeland.
"I came to receive the prize on behalf of the Venezuelan people and I will take it back to Venezuela at the correct moment," she said.
"I'm going back to Venezuela regardless of when Maduro goes out … My return will be when we believe the security conditions are right, and it won't depend on whether or not the regime leaves.
"It will be as soon as possible."
