A Florida-based nonprofit organization was tasked with the mission to take opposition leader María Corina Machado from Venezuela to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Bryan Stern, the founder of Tampa-based Grey Bull Rescue, spoke to NBC6 about the details of Operation “Golden Dynamite,” in which he personally took part.
“She is overwhelmingly the highest-profile person we have rescued,” Stern said. “This is by far the highest profile operation that we’ve ever done. The threat to her and the threat to the operation being compromised was very high.”
Machado was hiding for months before her rescue. Her first public appearance after 11 months was before supporters in Oslo on Thursday morning, hours after her daughter accepted the Nobel prize on her behalf.
Stern said the operation was funded by unidentified donors.
“It’s not the U.S. government. I’ve never received a thank-you note, let alone a dollar, from the U.S. government,” Stern said.
In a news conference in Oslo, Norway, Machado did mention that she received help from the United States. Stern clarified that his organization was part of the second phase of the operation.
He said he accepted the mission last Friday, around 7 p.m.
“We really wanted to get her in time for the Nobel Prize ceremony,” he said. “But there were several obstacles.”
Getting Machado out of Venezuela required disguising her appearance, though Stern did not detail how this was accomplished.
“Her face was a problem because she is the most famous person in Venezuela after Maduro,” he said.
Stern claimed that Maduro’s regime was using facial recognition technology to track her down.
“In Maduro’s regime, they call it ‘The Hunt for María’ in the same way as we talk about ‘The Hunt for Bin Laden,’” he said. “We had to use a lot of deception, even with some members of her own team,” he said.
Stern said he met Machado for the first time on Tuesday, but did not disclose when or where the exact encounter took place.
“I met her for the first time at sea. We used a fishing boat to get her to her flight,” he said.
Stern recounted that the conditions were extreme.
“There were very strong tides, waves of five to six feet, and we were doing this in the middle of the night,” he said. “It was completely dark, almost no moonlight. We were all very cold and wet.”
Stern said that Grey Bull Rescue’s role was to design and implement the extraction of Machado to a “friendly country” from which she flew to another destination.
“I would say that we transited through Curaçao. She was not in Curaçao. She never went through immigration in Curaçao,” he said.
Machado vowed to eventually return to Venezuela.
“I believe that the risk, even though was very high, was worthwhile and perhaps the risk going back in higher,” Machado said.
Machado is one of the most prominent opponents of Maduro’s government. She’s hidden for most of this year and is under a decade-long travel ban.
“Certainly the regime would have done everything to prevent me from coming,” Machado said. “They did not know where I was hiding in Venezuela, so it was hard for them to stop me.”
According to its website, Grey Bull Rescue operates on two fronts: The Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, a non-profit organization funded entirely by donors, and The Grey Bull Rescue Group, a for-profit organization created to assist governments and other entities in rescuing citizens in danger.
“Maduro is a brutal dictator who is a crime boss with a seat at the United Nations; he’s no different than any other criminal, and to have the privilege to be asked to this operation was just a great honor to be asked,” Stern said. “Besides the fact that she won the Nobel Prize, she’s the rightful leader of Venezuela and all these other things, she’s also a mom who really wants to see her kids but for me it was like meeting a celebrity.”
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
