The Venezuela boat strikes refers to a September 2025 U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that the White House said killed 11 drug traffickers — an action legal experts said may have violated international human rights and maritime law.[1] John Kiriakou says the normal protocol for a suspected drug vessel is to capture, board, and inspect it, seizing it only if contraband is found — not to kill everyone aboard.[2] He states flatly that the strike amounts to the murder of 11 people who had never been charged with a crime by the United States or any other government, and calls what happened, “for lack of a better term, piracy on the high seas followed by a mass murder.”[3][4] He argues the strike denied the victims their constitutional right to face accusers in court and constituted an international crime for which no one will ever be punished.[5]
Regional reaction
Kiriakou recounts that the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago publicly praised the U.S. strike, while the other 15 members of the CARICOM Caribbean cooperation bloc objected that the U.S. had failed to coordinate the attack as required under existing agreements.[6]
Venezuela and the drug trade
Kiriakou says that after leaving the CIA, he served as chief investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Chairman John Kerry, where he authored a committee report on the drug trade from Central and South America into Western Europe.[7] That report found drugs passing through — not originating in — Venezuela via unmonitored airstrips, flown to West Africa, then transported by camel along centuries-old trade routes to the Mediterranean and by boat to Spain.[8] He says the U.S. government has never accused Venezuela of being involved in the drug trade, contrary to Trump’s claim that Venezuelans are the kingpins of South American drug trafficking.[9]
The 11-person boat
Kiriakou argues that 11 people aboard the targeted boat is itself suspicious: more people than typical drug traffickers would carry, since the roughly 1,800 pounds of cargo weight sacrificed for 10 extra passengers would cut into smuggling capacity.[10] He adds that more people aboard also means more potential informants who could implicate each other if caught — “11 people on a drug boat is 10 people that can rat you out.”[11]
The Maduro capture and the oil-and-Iran logic
Discussing the November 2025 capture of Nicolás Maduro that followed the boat strikes, Kiriakou said he wondered whether Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez — who took the oath of office after Maduro was seized and initially vowed defiance — might herself be compromised, given how quickly she shifted to seeking dialogue with Washington: “48 hours ago, she was ready to lay down her life. And today, she said, ‘Well, let’s have a dialogue.’”[12] He argued a full U.S. invasion or occupation of Venezuela is not feasible regardless, since the country is roughly the size of Germany, France, and Austria combined and mostly jungle.[12]
Kiriakou framed the capture as ultimately about countering China and Iran rather than drugs, noting Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on the planet — some 300 billion barrels — though it is also the highest-sulfur, dirtiest oil in the world.[13] He said that until 2017 only refineries in Houston, Texas could process Venezuela’s heavy crude, but the first Trump administration’s 2017 sanctions effectively shut down the Venezuelan oil industry, prompting China and India to build their own refineries for it — including a Chinese-built refinery in the Caribbean that, as of the interview, had still not opened.[14] He argued that securing Venezuelan oil also weakens Iran’s leverage internationally, since Iran’s principal card is its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 60% of the world’s oil flows — and that reduced U.S. dependence on that route undercuts it.[15]