A U.S. federal agent once made a bold proposal to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s chief pilot: divert the president’s plane so American authorities could seize him, in exchange for immense wealth, according to accounts of the covert meeting.
In exchange, the agent told the pilot in a clandestine meeting, the aviator would be made a very rich man.
The conversation was tense, and the pilot left noncommittal, though he provided the agent, Edwin Lopez, with his cell number – a sign he might be interested in helping the U.S. government.
Over the next 16 months, even after retiring from his government job in July, Lopez kept at it, chatting with the pilot over an encrypted messaging app.
The untold, intrigue-filled saga of how Lopez tried to flip the pilot has all the elements of a Cold War spy thriller – luxury private jets, a secret meeting at an airport hangar, high-stakes diplomacy and the delicate wooing of a key Maduro lieutenant. There was even a final machination aimed at rattling the Venezuelan president about the pilot’s true loyalties.
