Divergent Accounts Emerge Over Fate of Maduro’s Former Head Of The Presidential Guard And Military Intelligence

At the time of reporting, the core facts of Marcano Tábata's status, whether he faces only dismissal or has been arrested for treason, remain unverified by independent evidence.

Reports claiming that General Marcano Tábata who served as Venezuela’s Head of the Presidential Guard And Military Intelligence was dismissed for failing to protect President Maduro have appeared in some media outlets, while others have also mentioned his supposed arrest without any evidence, but at the time of writing this note there was no official information about this. Crucially, at the time of reporting, the core facts of Marcano Tábata’s status, whether he faces only dismissal or has been arrested for treason, remain unverified by independent, on-the-ground evidence. The Bolivarian government has officially reported that 100 individuals lost their lives during the US operation on Venezuelan soil as the leadership regroups to deal with the Trump administration’s continued pressure.

The reporting on the fate of Major General Javier Marcano Tábata exhibits an informational bifurcation. On one side, state-aligned media outlets such as Russia’s RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo have not covered this news at all, while official Cuban and Venezuelan press agencies have reported the general’s destitution or dismissal from his dual commands but avoided any mention of criminal charges, or an ongoing investigation, or an arrest. This makes it seem like an administrative or disciplinary personnel change within the military hierarchy, a narrative that maintains a facade of institutional control without acknowledging a deeper crisis of treason at the highest levels of security.

Conversely, a wide spectrum of Latin American and broader international press has consistently reported he was also arrested. Specifically major regional and global news agencies, along with opposition Venezuelan outlets operating in exile, have detailed not only his removal from posts but his subsequent detention by state security forces. These reports, often citing anonymous sources within the Venezuelan government or armed forces, say the arrest was linked to accusations of treason and direct culpability in the breach that led to Nicolás Maduro’s kidnapping. So, this coverage, if true, presents a picture of a Venezuelan government in the midst of a panicked and severe internal purge, where a powerful figure has become a primary suspect in a grave national security catastrophe, as suspicion now grips the Bolivarian power structure.

The arrest was supposedly ordered by interim President Delcy Rodríguez, now according to international press accused of being the architect of the betrayal that facilitated Maduro’s kidnapping and the killing of his Cuban bodyguard entourage by US forces on January 3rd. Specifically, it is alleged that Marcano Tábata deactivated the air defense protocols at Fort Tiuna and facilitated the extraction route, providing precise coordinates that enabled the success of the foreign operation that culminated in Maduro’s capture. This information comes from multiple news sources and social media reports detailing the power shift in Venezuela but has not been confirmed thus making it uncertain.

The supposed “leaked” information suggests a swift response to what is being treated as deliberate treason by revealing the blind spots in the Cuban-Venezuelan security ring that allowed the American operation to proceed with devastating effectiveness. Investigations by the new administration are reportedly pointing to encrypted communications between Marcano Tábata and foreign intelligence agencies in the weeks preceding the capture.

The United States, having executed the kidnapping, now conditions any future engagement on concrete steps toward an unclear neocolonial transition. The arrest of Marcano Tábata, if true, therefore, is more than a simple personnel change, for it is the first major convulsion in a power structure forced to reconfigure itself in the wake of a profound national humiliation.

On the other hand, the insistence on the arrest by much of the international and Latin American press, if the accounts aren’t true, would be propaganda crafted to worsen the morale of the Venezuelan population and military. As such a coverage validates the premise of a crippling security failure, reinforces the perception of the government’s illegitimacy and instability, and puts pressure on state media to eventually answer for the discrepancy.

The divergent narratives likely serve distinct strategic objectives for each side of the press. The omission of the arrest and charges by state-aligned outlets like RT and Sputnik Mundo, as well as Cuban and Venezuelan state media, could be a deliberate exercise in narrative control if the accounts are true. By reporting only the destitution, they avoid publicly legitimizing the profound internal betrayal that an arrest would confirm, thereby shielding the government’s image of unity and impenetrability. Hence preventing the demoralizing spectacle of a high-level show trial that could expose further vulnerabilities and they maintain a rhetorical focus on external aggression that being the US operation rather than internal rot which would be important for domestic consumption to project stability and for international allies to support a story of sovereign resistance.