Donald Trump has celebrated the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro with a crowd of adoring Venezuelans at a luxury Mar-a-Lago dinner party.
Videos posted on social media by Venezuelan influencers show them hugging the US President and thanking him for ridding their country of the despot on Saturday.
Latina artists Anirays Bolivar Camino and Adina Banea, and influencer Victoria Herrera were among those who attended. They each shared videos from inside Trump’s private Palm Beach resort.
Bolivar Camino said it was ‘an honor’ to be ‘the first Venezuelan to thank Donald Trump’ for capturing the dictator who had been controlling their country for the last 13 years.
Herrera, who attended the event with her husband, declared Trump to be ‘my president’. ‘What an honor as a Venezuelan to be here on this great day with POTUS,’ she wrote in a post.
As shown in Herrera’s videos, the opulent event was also attended by Elon Musk, in the latest sign of him cozying up to the president after their explosive feud in the summer of 2025.
Trump entered the Mar-a-Lago dining room to a rapture of applause, before he spoke with the attendees and posed for photographs with many of them. The White House declined to comment on the event.
More than eight million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2014 due to rampant violence, inflation, gang warfare and food shortages. As a result, the country has been left facing one of the largest displacement crises in the world, according to the United Nations.
Donald Trump has celebrated the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro with a crowd of adoring Venezuelans at a luxury Mar-a-Lago dinner on Saturday night. Artist Anirays Bolivar Camino (pictured above with Trump) was among those in attendance
Videos posted on social media by Venezuelan influencers show them thanking the US President for ridding their country of the despot Nicolas Maduro
The opulent event was also attended by Elon Musk, as shown above, in the latest sign of him cozying up to the president after their explosive feud in the summer of 2025
So while world leaders have reacted with varying levels of unease and condemnation over Maduro’s capture, the celebratory tone of Trump’s glitzy Florida party has been echoed among Venezuelan expat circles around the world.
On Saturday, jubilant Venezuelans spilled out onto the streets to welcome the news with singing and dancing, while waving both US and Venezuelan flags.
One person celebrating in Chile said: ‘I’ve come to celebrate because the dictatorship has fallen, Maduro’s drug trafficking has fallen, and Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello.
‘We are free, we are all happy that the dictatorship has fallen and that we have a free country.’
Another in Doral, Florida, added: ‘Today, justice is being served. Justice is being served for all the Venezuelans who left our country to demonstrate who we are.
‘We are fighters, we entrepreneurs, we are good people but we want to return to our country and rebuild, move forward and continue being that force that we have always been.
‘Long live Venezuela.’
Many people were pictured holding both US and Venezuelan flags in a gesture to Donald Trump, who ordered the special forces operation to capture Maduro
Venezuelans living in Chile celebrate the capture of Nicolas Maduro in Santiago on January 3
Airplanes, loud noises and at least one column of smoke were heard and seen in Venezuelan capital Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning
Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were seized by the US Army’s elite Delta Force unit during airstrikes in Caracas at around 2am local time on Saturday.
Explosions rang out across the city, with flames seen billowing into the air.
Speaking to The New York Times, nine minutes after he announced the raid, Trump said: ‘A lot of good planning and lot of great, great troops and great people.
‘It was a brilliant operation, actually.’ Asked if he had consulted Congress prior to authorizing the strike, Trump said: ‘We’ll discuss that.’
The United Nations has said it was ‘deeply alarmed’ by the US strikes and detention of Maduro, saying the escalation may have been a violation of international law.
‘These developments constitute a dangerous precedent,’ Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said in a statement.
Dujarric said there are worries about the wider implications for Latin America and the Caribbean, and called on ‘all actors in Venezuela’ to respect human rights and the rule of law.
The New York indictment against Maduro accuses him of leading a ‘a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking.’
It alleges that the drug trafficking efforts ‘enriched and entrenched Venezuela’s political and military elite.’
US authorities allege that Maduro partnered with ‘some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world’ to bring tons of cocaine into North America.
Authorities estimate that as much as 250 tons of cocaine were trafficked through Venezuela by 2020, according to the indictment.
The drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or via planes from clandestine airstrips, authorities allege.
Trump said the United States would govern Venezuela indefinitely in the meantime, after dismissing the prospect of the country’s popular opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, taking the reins, claiming she ‘does not have the support’.
He offered little further detail on the logistics of running Venezuela, which has a population of 30 million, but suggested the country’s vast oil reserves would be used to fund its revival.
Trump’s unapologetic focus on the South American nation’s oil supplies has prompted many US lawmakers to accuse him of being primarily motivated by economic gain, rather than a desire to pursue criminal charges.
