How the Venezuelan opposition leader was kicked out of the country. New details of the mission, told by a veteran of the special forces

The operation to get the Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado out of Venezuela was a dangerous one, but it went smoothly, the leader of the mission revealed to the BBC.

“The waters are very rough. It's pitch black. We use flashlights to communicate. It's very scary, a lot of things can go wrong,” said Bryan Stern, a US special forces veteran and founder of the Gray Bull Rescue Foundation.

The operation was successful, however, and Machado arrived safely in Oslo, Norway, before midnight on Wednesday.

Venezuela's opposition leader has been in hiding in her own country since last year's disputed election and has not been seen in public since January. Her grown children, whom she has not seen for two years, welcomed her to Oslo.

Gray Bull specializes in rescue and evacuation missions, especially from conflict and disaster areas. A representative of Machado's team confirmed to CBS News, the BBC's US media partner, that the organization was behind the rescue operation.

Stern revealed that Gray Bull has been building a presence in the Caribbean, including Venezuela and the neighboring island of Aruba, for months as part of preparations for possible operations in Venezuela.

“We have built infrastructure on the ground in Venezuela designed to get the Americans, allies, British and others out of the country should war break out in Venezuela,” he said.

Speculation about possible US military action against Venezuela has intensified in recent weeks after US President Donald Trump called on President Maduro to step down amid accusations that he was sending narcotics and criminals to the US.

How the mission went

According to the American veteran, the main challenge in this case was getting someone of the profile of María Corina Machado out of the country – given her notoriety as a prominent member of the opposition in Venezuela.

None of the infrastructure his firm had built in the country, he said, was “designed for the second most popular person in this country, who also had a target on his back.”

When they first contacted Machado's team, they didn't reveal his identity, but Stern had his suspicions.

When they contacted him in early December through a person who knew Machado's team, they were on their second attempt to get her out of Venezuela after the initial plan “didn't go well,” Stern said.

The operation was dubbed “Golden Dynamite”, an allusion to the fact that “Nobel invented dynamite”, and Machado was trying to get to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Things moved quickly and in a few days the mission was completed: contact with the team took place on Friday, they went into action on Sunday, and completed their mission on Tuesday.

Machado's men explored several possibilities to get her out of the country and finally settled on a plan that involved a tumultuous sea voyage.

To protect his work in Venezuela, Stern could not reveal all the details of the trip.

Machado switched two boats – a small one, which picked her up from land, and a slightly larger one with the veteran in it, which waited for her off the coast.

The trip took place in “very rough waters” with waves of up to three meters in “absolute darkness”, the special forces veteran said.

“The trip wasn't much fun. It was cold, we got drenched, we were all wet, the waves were really strong, and we used that to our advantage. We managed to get her to land and where her plane was, and she then flew to Norway.”

During the trip, various measures were taken to mask and hide Machado's face, including disguises, but also her digital profile.

“The biometric threat is real,” he points out, adding that they've made sure it can't be located through the phone.

Machado showed admirable stoicism in the face of the harsh conditions, settling for a sweater to keep warm but asking for nothing else.

“She was soaking wet and freezing and she never complained,” he laughed, admitting the operation was dangerous because the waters are merciless.

“If I'm driving a boat and an engine burns out, I'm swimming to Venezuela,” he joked.

Asked how he could guarantee the safety of the Venezuelans who contributed to the operation, Stern said they had concealed their identities and anyway “we [Grey Bull] we're doing a lot of diversionary operations.”

Many of those who helped him could not realize that they were working for him, while others thought they “knew the whole story” but in reality had no idea what was going on.

“Some people have done things that are benign from their perspective – but critical to our mission.”

Another detail Stern was able to reveal is that the operation was funded by donors, not the US government: “I never received a thank you note from the US government, let alone a dollar.”

Stern said he did, however, act in coordination with some nation states, as well as the intelligence and diplomatic services of several countries. These included alerting the US in an “informal” way.

Machado stated that she intended to return to Venezuela, but Stern revealed that he advised her not to.

“I told her, 'Don't come back. You're a mother. We need you'. She's going to do what she's going to do… I understand why she would want to come back, because she's a hero to her people.”

“I wish he wouldn't come back; but I have a feeling he will.”