Lisbon, Jan. 4, 2026 (Lusa Verifica) - Dozens of fake images and videos about the US military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro are circulating on social media, including archive footage and alleged photos of the capture generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
+++ Claim: ‘first photo of Maduro after being captured by the United States’ +++
In the early hours of Saturday, 3 January, the United States carried out a lightning military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and social media quickly filled with images of the alleged operation, including bombings in the capital, Caracas, and elsewhere in the country.
Early in the morning, several versions of the alleged ‘first photo of Maduro after being captured’ also began to circulate, including a screenshot showing Maduro accompanied by four special forces agents next to a jet plane: https://archive.ph/jNAsg, https://archive.ph/KaAtz, https://archive.ph/gYkux, https://archive.ph/J85kR, https://archive.ph/VjDn8, https://archive.ph/cIJAk and https://archive.ph/PDHxr (examples).
Among the hundreds of accounts that shared some of these images are Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former Brazilian president (https://archive.ph/szO5p), the official CHEGA account on various social networks (https://archive.ph/eIQpT, https://archive.ph/UgH23), including President André Ventura (https://archive. ph/TpIek) and members of parliament from that party (https://archive.ph/5zJTX and https://archive.ph/Q6XxS), and even media outlets from several countries (https://archive.ph/3eZPP, https://archive.ph/pwX1G and https://archive.ph/5e1rV).
+++ Facts: archive videos are circulating, and several photos of the arrest were generated by AI +++
Some of these images of Maduro differed from one another, and several details pointed to the high probability that they had been generated by AI, as international fact-checkers such as David Puente (https://archive.ph/1trwm) and Tal Hagin (https://archive.ph/xXcYF and https://archive.ph/HavMG) were quick to note.
Throughout the morning, fact-checkers from projects such as EFE Verifica (https://archive.ph/t3ww9), Cazadores de Fake News (https://archive.ph/QKSEf), Fast Check (https://archive.ph/MkIFh), Newtral (https://archive.ph/jbHye) and others came to the same conclusion.
As several pointed out, and Lusa Verifica confirmed, one of the oldest versions shared by an AI enthusiast (https://archive. ph/JRjGB) clearly showed signs of artificial origin, namely the invisible SynthID watermark embedded by Google's AI tool, which was detected through an analysis in Google Gemini, a simple process that anyone can reproduce by following these steps: https://archive.ph/Nr7GF.
Other versions were subsequently generated from this fake photo, including an album of six realistic images created by an AI expert, who initially did not identify them as his creations (https://archive.ph/jwxDx). Still, they later marked them as ‘100% AI-generated’ (https://archive.ph/bMnSF).
Despite this, these photos were also widely shared on social media as ‘official images’ (https://archive.ph/pijB8) and new versions generated from the initial creations circulated with even more obvious signs of falsification, such as soldiers with three hands: https://archive.ph/ezc1p.
In addition to these, images of Nicolás Maduro covered in blood (https://archive.ph/BPj7Q) were also falsified, allegedly being transported inside a US military aircraft (https://archive.ph/1IMlD, https://archive.ph/DSIfc) or detained in military uniform (https://archive.ph/KFbAD), in this case a simpler manipulation of a photo of a politician and businessman detained in Ukraine in 2022 (https://archive.ph/SRX8J).
Old videos were also reused on social media and in some national and international media outlets to illustrate the US attack on Caracas, including archive footage of protests in Venezuela and other countries, videos of military exercises in the US and even Iranian attacks on Israel in 2024, as noted by fact-checkers from BBC Verify (https://archive.ph/lS1qW), EFE Verifica (https://archive.ph/3tne0), Verifica RTVE (https://archive.ph/9FOmY9), among others.
The first official photo of Nicolás Maduro under US detention was only shared in the middle of Saturday afternoon by President Donald Trump on the social network Truth Social and later on the White House account on X (https://archive.ph/ZcvME), showing the Venezuelan president blindfolded, handcuffed and dressed in a tracksuit, allegedly already on board a US Navy ship.
On Sunday, photos and videos began to be shared of Maduro and his wife's arrival in New York, where he will be tried, in which he initially appears dressed in a blue hooded sweatshirt, surrounded by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other agencies: https://archive.ph/kbG9n, https://archive.ph/wgqpI and https://archive.ph/e8zSZ (examples).
+++ Lusa Verifica assessment: False +++
The US indeed captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a large-scale military operation carried out in the early hours of Saturday morning in Caracas and other locations in Venezuela. Still, many of the photos and videos of the attack and Maduro's arrest circulating on social media and in some media outlets are fake, including videos recorded in other countries and several images of Maduro in custody that AI actually generated.
LYGA/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
