The United States managed to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro along with his wife during a nighttime raid on the Latin American country’s capital, Caracas.
President Trump announced the development in a post on Truth Social and later went on to share a photo of a blindfolded Maduro under US arrest on the USS Iwo Jima in US custody.
The image, due to its high impact showing a country’s president under custody, has since been widely circulated by netizens and news media worldwide.
However, one cannot help but look closely and gain a somewhat more intriguing understanding of the image that President Trump shares by analyzing the intricate nuances reflected in it.
CNN Analyst John Miller said while breaking down the now-famous photo that the Venezuelan president was handcuffed, “wearing blackout glasses to prevent him from seeing where he’s moving from point A to point B”. This is a fairly common practice often used by law enforcement agencies to reduce an arrestee’s awareness of his surroundings.
Miller then goes on to describe the dark gray vest around Maduro’s neck, saying it was an inflatable life jacket that a person generally wears on a plane or boat – in case of an emergency to avoid drowning.
This is relevant as the Venezuelan president, after being captured from Caracas by US forces, was brought to the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault ship stationed in the Caribbean.
“You see a couple of chemical strips that glow in the dark. That’s the kind they give to people on board various planes […] to make sure that if it goes down or they go in the water, they can be inflated by pulling the tabs and those things glow in the dark,” Miller noted.
In addition, the analyst pointed out the headphones that Maduro was wearing, which, according to him, were “meant to obstruct his hearing so that he cannot hear the conversations around him”.
Finally, he drew attention to the background of the photo, saying that the back of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent’s raid jacket with the agency’s acronym visible on it.
“That means he is under arrest by US federal law enforcement,” he noted.
Miller’s assessment appears to be supported by the fact that since his capture, Maduro has been moved to New York and is set to stand trial on drug-trafficking and weapons charges alongside his wife.
The Venezuelan president is currently incarcerated in a New York prison awaiting the course of the legal process against him.
