Venezuelan security forces have detained several Americans since Trump began military campaign: report

Venezuelan security forces have detained several Americans in the past several months since Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to begin attacking suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and blocking suspected sanctioned oil tankers departing the country.

The New York Times cited a U.S. official who told the news outlet that the State Department was considering designating two Americans, including one traveler from Staten Island identified as James Luckey-Lange, as wrongfully detained.

The 28-year-old is the son of the musician Diane Luckey, who performed under the stage name Q Lazzarus and is known for her 1988 single “Goodbye Horses,” which featured in the 1991 psychological thriller film The Silence of The Lambs.

The identities of the other Americans held in Venezuelan captivity have not yet been made public. Some of the detained Americans are known to be facing legitimate criminal charges, according to the Times’s source.

The U.S. escalation of political and military pressure on the government of Nicolas Maduro has continued for months as the Trump administration accuses the Maduro government of being controlled by a drug smuggling operation led by Maduro himself, “Cartel de los Soles”.

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Maduro has previously used captured U.S. citizens as pressure in negotiations with Washington. Conversely, Trump has made the release of Americans held overseas in any territory a priority in his two presidencies.

The president sent U.S. envoy Richard Grenell to Venezuela to negotiate a prisoner deal in the days after returning to office, according to The New York Times. A prisoner swap in July led to 10 U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents being released.

Reports of the newly detained Americans came as the State Department announced sanctions on four entities it said were “illegally operating in Venezuela’s oil sector” on Wednesday.

“The Trump Administration is also blocking four associated oil tankers, part of a shadow fleet that funds Nicolás Maduro’s illegitimate, corrupt regime and allows Maduro and his cronies to evade sanctions,” the statement read.

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“Today’s sanctions continue President Trump’s pressure campaign on Maduro and his cronies. The Trump Administration is committed to disrupting the network that props up Maduro and his illegitimate regime.”

The Independent has contacted the State Department for comment on the reported detainees in Venezuela.

Some of the tankers stopped or interdicted by U.S. forces are part of the so-called “shadow fleet” made up of dozens of ships that use shell companies and flags of convenience to evade U.S. sanctions and international laws.

“These vessels, some of which are part of the shadow fleet serving Venezuela, continue to provide financial resources that fuel Maduro’s illegitimate narco-terrorist regime. Maduro’s regime increasingly depends on a shadow fleet of worldwide vessels to facilitate sanctionable activity, including sanctions evasion, and to generate revenue for its destabilizing operations. Today’s action further signals that those involved in the Venezuelan oil trade continue to face significant sanctions risks,” read a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, more than 100 people have been killed in U.S. military strikes targeting small vessels operating in the Caribbean since the campaign began this year. The boats are alleged by the Trump administration, which has not provided evidence publicly, of being used for drug smuggling.

The White House has not gone to Congress for authorization to use military force in the region, but efforts to bring War Powers resolutions to curtail the administration’s strikes have not succeeded.

International experts and the administration’s critics in the U.S. have called the strikes extrajudicial murder, and accused the administration of using deadly force against suspected criminals that do not pose an imminent threat to any lives, in terms that would not be acceptable for law enforcement.

The administration and its allies have rejected those criticisms. The outrage around the growing number of military strikes grew substantially earlier this year after news broke of a September operation which included a second strike against a damaged vessel that killed wounded survivors clinging to the wreckage to stay afloat.

On Monday CNN reported that a CIA-directed strike earlier in December targeted a dock on the Venezuelan coast, with no reported casualties, marking the first operation in Trump’s military campaign with a target on Venezuelan soil.