María Corina Machado Escapes in Speedboat via the Curacao Route, with U.S. Support, After 12 Years of Judicial Restriction to Attend Her Nobel Peace Prize
The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado managed to evade the repressive controls of Chavismo and leave the country last Tuesday, December 9, 2025.
Her initial destination was the Dutch island of Curacao, just 64 kilometers from the Venezuelan coast, a maritime route fraught with risks that has served as a lifeline for other dissidents persecuted by the socialist dictatorship.
This information, confirmed by U.S. intelligence sources to The Wall Street Journal, is not only a personal victory for María Corina Machado but also delivers a symbolic setback to the socialist authoritarianism that has kept Venezuela suffocated for more than twenty years.
Machado, awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her defense of democracy and human rights, was forced to undertake this odyssey after 12 years of absolute prohibition from leaving the national territory.
The Chavista regime kept her under judicial restriction through fabricated accusations, such as alleged «conspiracy crimes«, which prevented her from even boarding domestic flights.
Since August 2024, when the Supreme Court of Justice (controlled by Maduro) indefinitely disqualified her from public office, the politician took refuge in clandestinity, moving between hideouts and diplomatic embassies.
The route chosen by Machado was casual from Caracas, the convoy headed toward the coast of Falcón state, an area under constant surveillance by the Bolivarian National Guard and Cuban intelligence services.
There, with the connivance of internal allies, possibly discontented elements from the repressive apparatus itself, she boarded a speedboat that navigated the turbulent waters of the Gulf of Venezuela.
The journey, about three hours under ideal conditions, was complicated by bad weather that delayed her arrival in Curacao, according to details revealed by Machado herself in an audio sent to the Nobel Committee.
«Many things we had to go through, and so many people who risked their lives so that I could reach Oslo», confessed the leader, whose daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado collected the prize on her behalf during the ceremony in Norway, with a speech that denounced the «brutal dictatorship» responsible for thousands of political prisoners.
This route has been used previously by key opponents. In May 2025, five of Machado’s advisors, known as «Las Guacamayas«, fled a siege at the Argentine embassy in Caracas with U.S. help, escaping in a similar operation that included maritime evacuation.
The logistical support from Washington was crucial; during the critical hours, two F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford—the most advanced warship in the world—flew over the Gulf of Venezuela and Lake Maracaibo, deterring possible Chavista interceptions.
Machado, once in Curacao, took a commercial flight toward Europe, although the weather prevented her from arriving in time for the December 10 ceremony. For that reason, it was her eldest daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, who ascended the stage at Oslo City Hall to collect the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.
With a firm voice and visibly emotional, Ana Corina read the speech prepared by her mother, in which María Corina denounced the «brutal dictatorship» that keeps more than 2,000 political prisoners in Venezuelan jails, thanked the thousands of Venezuelans who have risked everything for freedom, and reaffirmed her unwavering commitment: «I will not rest until Venezuela is free«.
The young woman, a lawyer by profession and resident in exile, closed her intervention with a phrase that resonated throughout the hall: «This Nobel is neither mine nor my mother’s; it belongs to the Venezuelan people who refuse to surrender to 21st-century socialism«.
Despite not being physically present, María Corina followed the ceremony live from a safe location and, according to sources close to her, is already preparing her return to Venezuela in the coming days, as her daughter anticipated at the end of the event: «My mother will return soon; her fight allows no pauses«.
This escape revitalizes the opposition resistance.
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