In August, Lopez sent a link to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice announcing an increase in the reward amount to $50 million.
The plan for the arrest was developed in April 2024, when Lopez was working as an attaché at the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic. According to an informant, two of Maduro's planes — a Dassault Falcon 2000EX and a Dassault Falcon 900EX — were undergoing repairs in the Dominican Republic. These planes were found at Santo Domingo airport along with five pilots, one of whom was Villegas. The agent and his colleagues engaged them in conversations without revealing that they knew about the connections to Maduro. Later, the planes were detained and confiscated as part of sanctions against Venezuela.
The correspondence between Lopez and Villegas ceased in August when the pilot decided to block the American's number. On September 19, Marshall Billingslea, a former official in the Donald Trump administration, posted a birthday greeting to Villegas on Twitter along with a photo of the meeting with Lopez, taken a minute before Maduro's plane departed from Caracas and 20 minutes before its return.
These events add new facts to the investigation of international operations aimed at detaining Venezuelan authorities.
