United States Delta Force operators last week hit a jungle compound in southern Venezuela, liberating 12 American children–who had been abducted from US soil over the past 18 months–while demolishing a cartel stronghold. The mission unveiled a possible truth: That the massive armada of US warships in the region has dual objectives—crippling the narcotics industry and bringing kidnapped American kids back home.
The children, aged 8 to 16, went missing from various US states between March 2024 and July 2025. They had vanished from shopping centers, playgrounds, and school bus stops, gone without a trace, as if by a magician’s clever illusion.
According to a White Hat source, the CIA’s Special Operations Group (SOG) somehow learned last month that American children were being held by hostile forces at a remote drug refinery accessible only by foot and a dirt airstrip large enough to accommodate twin turboprop airplanes, deep in the dense rainforest. It’s unclear how SOG got involved and learned about the children and the refinery; SOG’s covert nature precludes disclosure. It has been rumored that they and Delta have been in Venezuela for far longer than the administration has admitted.
“I don’t know how long Delta’s been there, don’t know how far they were from the target, but I know they were assigned the mission and were in striking range when it was greenlit,” our source said.
The Delta Force team—elite soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta—reportedly reached Venezuela’s Bolívar state, a lawless region plagued by rogue militias and cartel offshoots, late Thursday night and surveilled the compound, a fortified hacienda illuminated by floodlamps and guarded by roving patrols.
Equipped with night-vision goggles, suppressed rifles, and drone support from a nearby US Navy vessel in the Caribbean, the operators neutralized 28 guards in under 15 minutes. One guard was purportedly shot with a .50 caliber round that caused his spine to explode outward in a shower of white bone fragments.
After neutralizing the opposition, Delta discovered hidden bunkers that housed children in cramped, poorly ventilated cells. They also found and destroyed 1,500 kilos of packaged cocaine, the destruction of which, our source said, later infuriated the CIA. Helicopters flying just above the tree canopy, presumably from a clandestine forward operating base, extracted the team and the freed children before the sun rose over the Orinoco River basin.
“It was surgical,” our source said. “No American casualties.”
The children, he added, were taken to a secure location for immediate medical care.
“Hypothetically, POTUS could be delaying bombing Venezuela because he knows there’s more kids there we have to rescue, and he doesn’t want them to be collateral damage,” our source said.
One thing is sure: What began as a crusade against cocaine and heroin cartels evolved into a multifaceted covert program.
The rescue marks the second time in a month that US military forces have recovered American children from Central and South American cartels; in October, US Marines saved kids from child traffickers in Panama.