2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado can be seen making a daring escape from Venezuela in a new video from the rescue team that has gone viral.
The covert mission, titled 'Operation Golden Dynamite', was intended to extract Machado from Venezuela and take her to Norway for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony on December 10.
Released on Friday by Grey Bull Rescue, the team of US Special Operations veterans behind her escape, the video shows her boarding a boat from the Venezuelan coast and sailing to a rendezvous point in the Caribbean Sea.
Urgente - La compañía de seguridad Grey Bull revela imágenes inéditas de la extracción de María Corina Machado de Venezuela para que pudiera recibir el Premio Nobel de Paz pic.twitter.com/Cl2NcMzOvO
— Luis Carlos Vélez 🌎 (@lcvelez) January 16, 2026
It was at this point that she was picked up by Grey Bull founder Bryan Stern and his team, who had been waiting for her on another boat.
“Hi, María. My name is Bryan. Nice to meet you. I got you,” he is heard saying, after confirming Machado's identity and helping her change vessels in the nocturnal operation.
“So wet and so cold,” she’s heard saying. The edited video then cuts to her speaking directly to the camera.
“I am María Corina Machado. I’m alive. I’m safe and very grateful to Grey Bull.”
She later boarded a plane to Oslo, the capital of Norway, where she would receive her prize and meet her family.
"Maria is a household name, #1 threat to the Maduro regime, and was being actively pursued by the Venezuelan and other security services. The maritime domain is the most dangerous operating environment paired with her profile and the high counterintelligence threat ... this was a mission impossible," Grey Bull Rescue wrote in an X post back in December.
Grey Bull Rescue has successfully completed its 800th mission — Operation: GOLDEN DYNAMITE — the extraction of @NobelPrize laureate María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) from deep in Venezuela.
— Grey Bull Rescue (@greybullrescue) December 11, 2025
This was our most high threat and high stakes mission we have ever done. It was also…
The Venezuelan leader went into hiding after the regime in Caracas began ruling with an iron fist after the disputed 2024 elections that saw Nicolas Maduro stay in power.
However, days after the US extraction of Maduro and his wife after attacks on Venezuela, she praised US President Donald Trump, and offered him her Nobel Peace Prize medal. However, the Nobel Committee has said that the award was still legally under her name, and could not be transferred.
