Nearly 90 people arrested during protests against Maduro’s 2024 re-election released in Venezuela, NGOs say

• Look: Venezuela Arrests Americans Under Growing U.S. Pressure
• War rhetoric: Trump’s foreign policy bolsters Russia and China’s ambitions through coercion

“On the morning of January 1, mothers and members of their families reported new releases of political prisoners from Tocorón prison, in the state of Aragua (north),” published the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners (Clippve) on social networks.

This is the second group of people released in the past week. At Christmas, Venezuelan authorities announced the release of 99 people, while NGOs like Foro Penal were only able to verify 61 cases. It is estimated that there are still more than 700 people detained for political reasons in the country.

The 2024 presidential elections triggered protests that left 28 dead and around 2,400 arrests, in a context of intensifying police repression, after the Venezuelan opposition denounced fraud and ratified the victory of Edmundo González, a candidate supported by opposition leader María Corina Machado. Since then, Venezuelan justice has released more than 2,000 detainees, according to official figures.

The releases coincide with increased U.S. pressure against the Maduro government, which since August has mobilized troops in the Caribbean, ordered an informal closure of Venezuelan airspace and has now begun seizing sanctioned oil tankers near Venezuela.

At the same time, an American official, on condition of anonymity, revealed that Venezuelan security forces arrested several Americans in the months following the start of the Donald Trump government’s military and economic pressure campaign against the country. Some face legitimate criminal charges, while Washington plans to declare at least two people unjustly detained. Among those arrested were three people with dual Venezuelan and American citizenship and two Americans with no known ties to the country, he said.

Maduro has long used detained Americans, guilty or innocent of serious crimes, as bargaining chips in negotiations with Washington, his greatest adversary. During his two terms, Trump prioritized the release of Americans detained abroad and sent his envoy, Richard Grenell, to Venezuela to negotiate a prisoner deal days into his second term. The period of negotiations resulted in the release of 17 U.S. citizens and permanent residents detained in Venezuela.

• Fear of the ocean: Grim evidence of Trump’s Caribbean attacks washes up on Colombian beaches

But the Trump administration’s decision to suspend these negotiations in favor of a campaign of military and economic pressure put an end to these releases. The number of Americans detained in Venezuela has started to increase again in recent months, according to the US official.

The increase coincided with the dispatch of a U.S. naval fleet to the Caribbean and the start of air attacks on ships that Washington says are carrying drugs at Maduro’s behest. The United States further intensified its pressure this month, targeting ships carrying Venezuelan oil and crippling the country’s largest source of exports.

The identities of most of those arrested in recent months are unknown. The family of a tourist named James Luckey-Lange from Staten Island, New York, reported him missing shortly after crossing Venezuela’s volatile southern border in early December. According to the U.S. official, Luckey-Lange, 28, was among those recently arrested and is one of two people who could be considered unjustly detained.

Luckey-Lange is the son of musician Diane Luckey, who performed under the stage name Q Lazzarus and is best known for her 1988 single “Goodbye Horses.” An avid traveler and amateur martial arts practitioner, the young man worked in commercial fishing in Alaska after graduating from college, according to friends and family. He is undertaking a long journey across Latin America in 2022, following the death of his mother. His father died this year.

• American sources: The first attack on Venezuela mentioned by Trump was carried out by the CIA and targeted the Tren de Aragua.

— He traveled a lot, trying to figure out what to do with his life — said Eva Aridjis Fuentes, a filmmaker who worked with Luckey-Lange on a documentary about Q Lazzarus. — He suffered many losses.

At the beginning of December, the young man wrote on his blog that he was carrying out research into gold mining in the Amazon region of Guyana, bordering Venezuela. On December 7, he told a friend via text message that he was in an unspecified location in Venezuela, and the next day he last spoke to his family. He said he was heading to Caracas, where he planned to take a Dec. 12 flight to New York.

It is unclear whether Luckey-Lange had a visa to enter Venezuela, as the country’s law requires for U.S. citizens. His aunt and closest relative, Abbie Luckey, said in a telephone interview that she had not been contacted by U.S. authorities and was seeking information on his whereabouts.

Some U.S. citizens released from prison in Venezuela earlier this year described abusive conditions and a lack of due process. Many have not been charged with any crime and few have been convicted.

Peruvian American Renzo Huamanchomo Castillo, 48, reported that after being arrested last year while traveling to Venezuela to meet his wife’s family, he was charged with terrorism and plotting to kill Maduro. Stating that the accusations made no sense, he said he was frequently beaten and given a liter of muddy water a day.

— We realized later that I was just a symbol — he reported.

Huamanchumo, 48, said he was frequently beaten and given a liter of muddy water a day while detained in a notorious Venezuelan prison called Rodeo I. He was released in a prisoner exchange in July.

“It was the worst thing you could imagine,” he said.