A former U.S. Green Beret who was arrested and charged after mounting a failed coup against Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has been missing for months and is considered a fugitive, according to court documents filed this week.
The veteran, Jordan G. Goudreau of Melbourne, Florida, was charged in 2024 with conspiracy to export military-style rifles, night vision devices, lasers, silencers and other military equipment without a license to Colombia, to be used for “activities in Venezuela.”
In a court filing this week, the Justice Department said that Mr. Goudreau had failed to appear at a bond hearing late in October. The woman responsible for his bond is a filmmaker named Jennifer Gatien, who made a documentary about his coup attempt called “Men of War.”
She said that he had “stated in no uncertain terms that he would not return to jail,” and said she believed based on Mr. Goudreau’s “conduct and statements, that he intended to flee.”
In October, Mr. Goudreau was under care at a Department of Veterans Affairs facility. When he failed to appear in court, a warrant was issued for his arrest. According to court documents, law enforcement authorities later learned that the ankle monitoring device assigned to Mr. Goudreau had been found wrapped in aluminum foil and hidden in a piece of furniture.
Video footage was recovered capturing him leaving the V.A. facility and the government has not been able to apprehend him, despite ongoing efforts, the court filing said. Lawyers for Mr. Goudreau did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for the F.B.I., which often handles the apprehension of fugitives who have not yet pleaded guilty, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms. Gatien, the filmmaker, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Another witness, Jason Woolems, said in October that he believed Mr. Goudreau was capable of violence, recalling Mr. Goudreau calmly saying “I will not go back to jail. I will leave. I’ll kill myself. I’m not going back.”
In July 2024, Mr. Goudreau was arrested in New York and indicted in the Middle District of Florida alongside a co-conspirator, Yacsy Alexandra Alvarez, a Venezuelan national. Prosecutors said the two had exported the military equipment to Colombia through Mr. Goudreau’s security firm, Silvercorp.
Mr. Goudreau hatched the plan to overthrow the Venezuelan government over the course of a year. Calling it “Operation Gideon,” he enlisted disaffected Venezuelan officials, though he did not personally participate in it. His company claimed it had entered into a $220 million deal with the Venezuelan opposition to overthrow Mr. Maduro.
The mission was swiftly quashed.
On May 3, 2020, two boats with 60 men departed for Venezuela from Colombia. Eight men were killed by Venezuelan security forces. Thirteen were taken into Venezuelan custody, including two U.S. citizens, Green Berets who said Mr. Goudreau had recruited them.
Mr. Goudreau said the men had vomited throughout the entire journey, and that they had nearly run out of fuel. The mission has been referred to as the “Bay of Piglets,” a joking allusion to the failed American-backed invasion of Cuba in the 1960s.
Hernán Alemán, a Venezuelan legislator who helped fund the plot, said in 2020 that Mr. Goudreau did not participate in the raid because of Covid-related border closures, so he remained in Florida. A New York Times review of the documentary, “Men of War,” described him as “resembling a doomed middle manager who references ‘Starship Troopers’ and Heraclitus.”
Many observers wondered why Mr. Goudreau, a decorated veteran who had served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, would lead a quixotic insurrection against a foreign dictator. Mr. Maduro blamed the failed efforts on the U.S. government, which denied working with Mr. Goudreau.
In a video he posted on social media in 2020, Mr. Goudreau appeared alongside Javier Nieto, a retired Venezuelan army captain. The men said the operation had been launched “deep into the heart of Caracas.” Captain Nieto said the mission had come after nonviolent and democratic measures had been “exhausted.”
In January, Mr. Maduro was seized in an American military raid and charged in Manhattan with federal crimes including narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and is being held in a Brooklyn detention center.
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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