The Navy on Monday released the service details of a sailor who was detained by Venezuelan authorities at the end of August after a top official in the country alleged he was part of a plot to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro and overthrow his regime.
Wilbert Joseph Castaneda, who has been held in Venezuela for more than two weeks, is a petty officer first class and Navy SEAL who has been in the service since 2007, according to the records provided by the Navy. A U.S. official had earlier confirmed that an enlisted sailor was detained late last month as the country is embroiled in a disputed election that Maduro claims to have won.
The Associated Press reported that Venezuela Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello identified Castaneda as one of three Americans, as well as two Spanish and one Czech citizen, who were arrested as part of the alleged assassination plot.
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Cabello claimed that all six were part of a CIA-led plot to overthrow the Venezuelan government and showed images of rifles that he said were confiscated from some of the arrested, according to the AP. However, U.S. officials have refuted that claim, and some of Cabello’s claims about Castaneda do not appear accurate.
Those tensions have been building since Venezuela’s July 28 election between Maduro and Edmundo González, which officials from several countries say was stolen by Maduro.
However, both State and Defense department officials have said that there is no U.S. government plan to overthrow Maduro, and a State Department spokesperson told Military.com that “the United States continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela,” in an email Monday.
The State Department spokesperson also confirmed that they were aware of “unconfirmed reports of two additional U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela.”
Navy records for Castaneda, who appears to have first been detained, but not identified, on Aug. 30, show that the sailor joined his first SEAL team in 2009 and bounced between teams on the East and West coasts throughout his career. He was promoted to petty officer first class in June 2013.
Typically, the Navy will not offer further details of what team a SEAL is assigned to out of security concerns.
Shortly after his detention became public, a U.S. official told Military.com that Castaneda was “not on official travel or approved leave.”
CBS News reported that Castaneda had also been stripped of his Special Warfare insignia — commonly known as the Trident — indicating that the elite warfare community was in the process of removing him from its ranks.
The records offered by the Navy also do not back up Cabello’s claim that Castaneda deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia. The Navy’s data does not show that Castaneda was awarded either the Iraq or Afghanistan campaign medals — though those records are not always complete.
The Navy’s data on Castaneda does show that he has a track record of deployments, with four Sea Service Deployment ribbons, two Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary medals, and an Armed Forces Service Medal.
His records also do not show any combat or valor awards, though he did receive three Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals.
The Venezuelan’s allegation that Castaneda, along with the five others, were plotting to overthrow Maduro is not as far-fetched as it may seem.
In 2020, a former U.S. Green Beret, Jordan Goudreau, helped arm and train a group of around 300 Venezuelan army deserters in neighboring Colombia who were then supposed to sneak into Venezuela and help ignite a rebellion against Maduro.
The plan fell apart, several combatants were killed by Venezuelan security forces, and two of Goudreau’s U.S. Special Forces compatriots were arrested by the Maduro regime.
Goudreau was arrested in July 2024 in New York on federal arms smuggling charges and is now awaiting trial.
Venezuela is also simply a dangerous country for Americans, especially given the increasing sanctions against allies of Maduro by the U.S. The State Department has long warned American citizens not to travel to Venezuela, citing “a high risk of wrongful detention.”
The travel warning also notes that Venezuela’s “security forces have detained U.S. citizens for up to five years” and the U.S. “is not generally notified of the detention of U.S. citizens in Venezuela or granted access to U.S. citizen prisoners there.”
Last year, the Biden administration signed off on a deal in which Maduro released 10 Americans in exchange for a presidential pardon for Alex Saab, who was being held in custody on money laundering charges and, according to prosecutors, was helping the Venezuelan strongman avoid U.S. sanctions.
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