'She's awesome': How U.S. veterans helped Venezuela's Machado escape -- NPR [View all]

[erronis]

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/12/nx-s1-5642538/machados-escape-from-venezuela
Carrie Kahn

Nobel peace laureate María Corina Machado greets supporters from a balcony of the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway, in the early hours of Dec 11, 2025.
ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — It's an extraordinary achievement to win the Nobel Peace Prize. But for this year's laureate, even getting to the ceremony was a feat of its own.

María Corina Machado spent more than a year in hiding after her opposition movement defeated Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in last year's election by a wide margin, according to voting records validated by international observers. Maduro refused to leave office and ordered a massive crackdown on the opposition.

Getting Machado out of Venezuela and safely to Oslo required an operation worthy of a thriller. At the center of that mission was U.S. Special Forces Veteran Bryan Stern, the bearded, broad-shouldered founder of Grey Bull Rescue Foundation. Stern and his team of U.S. military veterans have pulled off hundreds of extractions around the world. But this one, he says, was different.

"She's the second most popular person in the Western Hemisphere after Maduro," he said." Because of that signature, that's what made this operation very hard."

. . .

Stern admits he was a bit star struck by Machado. He'd followed her fight for democratic change for years. He'd always assumed Venezuela's "Iron Lady" got her nickname from her political steeliness. But after that night, he says it's something more.

"She's gnarly," he said, laughing. "Pretty awesome."