Immediately after the capture, various images of Maduro began to appear on social media. The fact-checking team from Euronews, known as The Cube, found that many of them were circulated in Spanish, Italian, French, and Polish.
On January 3, American special forces conducted a swift operation during which they captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife. He was accused of drug trafficking and pleaded not guilty.
One of the images showing Maduro exiting an airplane was published by the official account of the Portuguese right-wing party Chega and its founder, André Ventura. Some online resources also presented this photograph as genuine.
Analysis of the image using the SynthID tool from Gemini revealed the presence of watermarks, indicating its creation or editing by AI.
This image garnered millions of views on social media; the post on X alone had 2.6 million views in Spanish.
According to analyst Tal Hagin, the rapid development of AI technologies makes it difficult to detect forgeries: “When there was little information, people started uploading generated images of Maduro in custody.” One such photo, showing him sitting in a military plane, collected over 4.6 million views.
The Newsguard platform, which focuses on information verification, reported clear signs of AI manipulation in the image that contradicted the actual facts: Maduro was airlifted by helicopter.
Additionally, fake images of jubilant Venezuelans appeared on social media, gathering over 5.6 million views. However, these also showed signs of AI—unnatural movements and incorrect details, such as car license plates.
While there were differing opinions in Venezuela regarding Maduro's capture: some rejoiced at his overthrow, while others condemned U.S. intervention.
A multitude of videos was edited from old footage, one of which gathered over a million views on the X platform. “This is Caracas today,” read the caption, although in reality, it was footage of a march involving Maduro and his supporters from November 2025.
Another video, widely circulated in the French-speaking part of X, shows a man filming the crowd from a balcony. “I have rarely seen a people as happy as the Venezuelans who have finally rid themselves of Maduro,” claimed the comment, against a backdrop of fireworks.
No strike?
In addition to misleading images of Maduro, fake news also emerged on social media claiming that the U.S. attacked the mausoleum of former President Hugo Chávez, which was spread, among others, by Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
One of the images claims that the mausoleum was destroyed.
[media=https://twitter.com/talhagin/status/2008182438992789759?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]
[media=https://twitter.com/Mrgunsngear/status/2007932768433455491?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]
However, as Hagin notes, the photograph on the right is clearly a modeled image based on a real photo of the mausoleum from 2013, to which elements of destruction were added.
The Hugo Chávez Foundation also posted a video on Instagram showing the building looking completely intact.
