US Officials: Cuba May Assassinate Maduro to Prevent His Flight or Surrender

United States intelligence officials have reportedly briefed the White House on a grim new assessment regarding the crisis in Venezuela: Nicolás Maduro is no longer just a target of American justice, but a potential hostage of his own security detail. According to senior administration sources, intelligence indicates that the Cuban agents tasked with protecting the Venezuelan leader have received standing orders to liquidate him if he attempts to flee the country or negotiate a surrender with the United States.
This alarming development complicates the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy, which has sought to force Maduro’s exit through a combination of crushing sanctions, the designation of his inner circle as the “Cartel of the Suns” terrorist organization, and the massive deployment of naval assets to the Caribbean under “Operation Southern Spear.”
“Maduro is effectively a prisoner in Miraflores,” a U.S. intelligence official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “The Cubans run his inner security ring, the Casa Militar. They control his communications, his transport, and his food. Our assessment is that Havana views him as a strategic liability if he leaves power alive. He knows too much about their intelligence operations across the hemisphere.”
The relationship between Caracas and Havana has long been symbiotic, with Venezuela providing billions in subsidized oil to keep the Cuban economy afloat in exchange for intelligence and security support. However, as the U.S. Navy tightens its blockade and the Venezuelan economy implodes, that relationship appears to have shifted into a predatory phase.
Sources suggest that the Cuban regime fears a “Noriega scenario”—referring to the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama that captured dictator Manuel Noriega—where a captured Maduro could trade decades of secrets about Cuban espionage, illicit gold trafficking, and support for groups like the ELN and FARC in exchange for leniency. To prevent this, Cuban “advisors” have reportedly thickened their presence around Maduro, vetting every visitor and monitoring his private calls.
“He’s trapped,” the official added. “He can’t trust his own generals because they might coup him to save themselves, and he can’t trust his Cuban bodyguards because their loyalty is to the party in Havana, not to him.”
The revelation sheds new light on the failed backchannel talks reported earlier this week, where Maduro’s representatives allegedly floated the idea of a “dignified exit.” It is now believed that these overtures may have been made without the full knowledge of his Cuban handlers, or were saboteured by hardliners within the regime who are effectively managed by Havana.
For the Pentagon, this dynamic raises the stakes of any potential kinetic operation. If the U.S. were to move on Caracas, the risk is not just a firefight with Venezuelan loyalists, but a race against time to secure Maduro before his own allies silence him permanently.