Inside the very tense and very humid secret mission to get María Corina Machado out of Venezuela

It took a private American rescue team between 15 and 16 hours to capture the Venezuelan opposition leader. Maria Corina Machado out of their country and on their way safely to Norway to pick up his Nobel Peace Prizeand will be reunited with his family on Wednesday. The vast majority of that time was spent in rough seas, and the man who led the operation and met Machado on a boat told News themezone, “No one was enjoying that trip, especially Maria!”

“No one’s blood pressure was low during any phase of this operation, including mine,” said Bryan Stern, a US special forces veteran who runs the Gray Bull Rescue Foundation. “It was dangerous. It was scary. The sea conditions were ideal for us, but they were certainly not waters you wanted to be in… the higher the waves, the harder it is to see them on radar. That’s how it works.”

In an interview Wednesday with News themezone, Stern gave insight into the complex operation his organization carried out to get Machado out of Venezuela and onto a plane to Norway, where she was reunited with her children for the first time in about two years. A representative for Machado confirmed to News themezone on Thursday that Gray Bull was behind the rescue operation that began Tuesday.

Of the hundreds of rescues his organization has conducted, he said this was one of the most challenging and rewarding. Machado has lived in hiding in her own country for almost a year, fearing persecution by the regime of President Nicolás Maduro, who is under increasing pressure from President Trump amid a US military buildup off his coast.

“He’s got a big target on his back,” Stern said of Machado. “This is not just any merchant who no longer wants to be in Venezuela. This is a rock star.”

“She is the first Nobel Prize winner that we have rescued, you know? She is the first person that we have rescued who has posters with her face everywhere in a country where there are protests in her favor. We have never rescued anyone with her status, with her stature,” he said.

His high profile, combined with the Maduro regime’s adoption of “a very defensive posture due to the US military build-up”, posed enormous risks to the operation, and Stern was reluctant to divulge many details about the ground operation, “because we still have other jobs to do in Venezuela, and we don’t want to put at risk sources, methods and people who worked on this.”

But once Machado was taken off Venezuelan soil on a ship, she was transported to a meeting place at sea, and Stern was there to welcome her to his ship for a 13- to 14-hour journey to an undisclosed location where she caught her flight to Oslo.

He said about two dozen people were directly involved within his team, but many more played a role, from providing intelligence to translation and logistics, including some who may never know they helped.

Stern and Gray Bull were in charge of the land and sea portion of the extraction, which he said had to be planned in only about four days, although his organization has been preparing for operations in Venezuela for months.

He said the operation was funded by “a few generous donors,” none of whom, as far as he knew, were U.S. government officials.

“The United States government did not contribute a single cent to this operation, at least to my knowledge,” Stern said.

He acknowledged that he and his organization “unofficially collaborated” with the U.S. military on positioning and plans, largely to avoid being inadvertently attacked.

Asked about reports that a private extraction specialist hired by the Trump administration had met with Machado on the small Caribbean island nation of Curacao, Stern told News themezone: “I am the contractor that specializes in extractions and I have never been hired by Donald Trump.”

“I didn’t meet her in Curacao. I met her somewhere else. I met her very far from Curacao. Extremely far,” he said.

The moment Machado boarded his boat was one of the “transitional moments” that present the greatest risk for any rescue operation, he said.

Stern did not say exactly where that happened, other than that it was on a ship in the Caribbean, but he did say that the late-night encounter and conversation he had with the Venezuelan “freedom fighter” in the hours that followed impressed him.

“Personally, I was blown away. She’s one of my heroes,” Stern said. “When I saw her for the first time and validated that it was her, my heart skipped a beat.”

The rough seas and dark skies Tuesday night were perfect for operating undercover, he said, but they didn’t make the trip pleasant.

“The maritime domain is the most unforgiving domain. This was in the middle of the night: very little moon, a little cloud cover, very hard to see, the ships have no lights.”

When she came aboard, “we were all pretty wet. My crew and I were soaked to the skin. She was also pretty cold and wet. She had a very arduous trip.”

“I was very happy. I was very excited. I was very tired,” she said.

When asked about the fact that Machado ultimately arrived in Oslo too late to attend Wednesday’s Nobel Prize ceremony in person, Stern said that “nothing went wrong, it just took time.”

“At least from my perspective, her life was the most important aspect of this. A ceremony is great, but I don’t think this operation will allow Maria to get to the ceremony on time,” he said. “I see this operation as saving the life of a freedom fighter, as saving the life of a mother.”

“We talked about her seeing her kids for the first time in two years and I almost cried,” Stern told News themezone. “She’s tough as nails and woodpecker lips, but she’s still a mom and talked about how excited she was to see her kids. It’s been two long years.”

He said that being able to facilitate that meeting “was truly a blessing. We couldn’t feel more privileged or honored to support this operation. She truly is a hero to me. I’ve seen her as an inspiring defender of freedom for as long as I’ve known her. So to be asked to support this, to lead this operation, it really was a great honor, a privilege for us.”

Machado and his daughter, who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of her mother on Wednesday, said the opposition leader I intended to return to Venezuela. Stern said he strongly advised him not to do it.

“I think she’s crazy. She’s so tough… you know, they call her the Iron Lady for a reason. I told her, ‘Don’t go back.'”

When asked if Gray Bull would help her return to the country, Stern told News themezone: “We’ve never done an infiltration, we’ve only done an exfiltration. So I don’t think so… That’s for her to determine and decide. But I think she shouldn’t come back. But she wants to. Maria is truly inspiring.”