Trump's lavish Maduro capture: $50M bounty, twice Bin Laden's; sparks debate on US spending
Washington (The Uttam Hindu): The US may be considering the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a major success, but this operation has exposed President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) campaign. During the 2024 election campaign, Trump had loudly invoked the "MAGA" slogan and promised that the US would no longer waste a single dollar of taxpayer money on military action or operations in other countries. But according to the latest figures, the US has spent billions of rupees over the past year to capture Maduro.
According to a report by the American media outlet Axios, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was leading this secret CIA operation against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. Political circles are abuzz that if this operation had failed, the entire blame would have been placed on Rubio. The US launched Operation Southern Spear in September 2025 to neutralize Maduro. According to data from Defense One magazine, a warship, a nuclear submarine, and the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier were deployed in this mission, with a total cost estimated at $40 billion.
83 fighter jets, 10 F-35 stealth jets, and 7 Reaper drones were deployed for aerial surveillance and attack, costing $3 billion. The report also revealed a startling figure: the operational cost of these weapons and resources deployed to blockade Venezuela was $333,000 (approximately Rs. 3 crores) per hour. The mission, which lasted from September to January, took approximately 3,700 hours, giving an idea of the cost. Furthermore, a $50 million (approximately Rs. 450 crores) bounty was placed on Maduro, more than double the bounty placed on terrorist Osama bin Laden. Following the operation, this sum, along with a separate $2 million reward for the helicopter pilot, was paid from the US government treasury.
The CIA played a crucial role in this entire incident. According to White House data, the CIA was allocated a massive budget of $101 billion (approximately Rs. 9 lakh crores) for its operations this year. Of this, $73 billion was devoted to intelligence gathering and $28 billion to military operations. It is reported that a significant portion of this budget was spent on the Venezuela mission alone. This is considered America's most expensive military operation, involving 150 helicopters and 10,000 soldiers. American soldiers had been planning this attack since August 2025.