'Spooks hotel': inside the five-star nerve centre of the US takeover of Venezuela

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

‘Spooks hotel’: inside the five-star nerve centre of the US takeover of Venezuela

Diplomats, businessmen and US marines mingle at the JW Marriott hotel in Caracas as deals are done and the country’s resources divvied up

Tom Phillips in Caracas
Wed 20 May 2026 10.00 BST
Last modified on Thu 21 May 2026 05.09 BST

Over breakfast in one of the swankiest hotels in Caracas, you can hear them mulling Venezuela’s past, present and future in sporadically hushed tones. As diners tuck in to plates of fried eggs, black beans and arepas, snatched fragments of conversation speak of election roadmaps, political fragmentation and oil-fuelled economic growth.

But the murmured discussions are not being conducted in Caribbean Spanish by Venezuelan officials pondering their country’s direction after the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro. The accents are North American and belong to the US officials, diplomats and spies now calling many of the shots here after Donald Trump’s controversial military intervention on 3 January. Neighbouring tables are occupied by huddles of musclebound US marines, tattoos covering their bulging calves, baseball caps covering their heads, and walkie-talkies strapped to their hips.

“How long will you be staying, sir?” a receptionist asks one of countless US government guests as they check in downstairs in the lobby.

“Oh, 26 or 27 days,” the man replies in thickly accented Spanish.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/20/venezuela-hotel-us-takeover

[malaise]

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