The "New Alcatraz": The Darkest Threat of the Venezuela Looting Spree

Andrea joins Russian mafia expert Olga Lautman to expose the transnational looting spree and warn Stephen Miller will turn Venezuela into a new Alcatraz. First, we look at who stands to get rich off Trump's illegal invasion. Devin Nunes and a squad of Trump Media cronies just took over a company that tried to bid $10 billion for Citgo, Venezuela's oil crown jewel, right as their boss plotted a secret invasion. So who  won Citgo? Why, MAGA billionaire Paul Singer, a vulture capitalist who serves as Trump's ATM and hand-picked Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. Who else is a big winner? The Republican Party's longtime backers, Exxon. Just as Trump hoped invading Venezuela would boost his plummeting approval ratings, Maduro threatened to invade oil-rich Guyana to distract from his own corruption. Now that Maduro is no longer harassing Exxon in Guyana, Exxon's stocks are soaring along with the rest of Big Oil. But the darkest "follow the money" story goes beyond oil. The private prison industry rakes in a fortune thanks to Trump's cruelty. El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison holds 40,000, but Trump and Stephen Miller want space for 80,000 people kidnapped from the U.S. Construction takes years; so Venezuela offers the obvious solution: the "New Alcatraz." Outsourcing prisoners to a lawless, torture-filled transnational Gulag, a story censored by Bari Weiss's CBS News, is the most troubling crisis of MAGA's illegal invasion of Venezuela and co-rule with a violent oil mafia. There's always hope, but it requires a blueprint and courage. The Venezuelan people proved their 2024 election victory through heroic citizen vote-counting: a model of resistance that we in the U.S. must study to reclaim our own democracy. We must align with these transnational forces for good to dismantle the global crime syndicate. We warned you this would happen. Now, we must organize, stand up, and remain defiant.  Show Notes: Devin Nunes and others linked to Trump Media became officers of a company soon after it made an unsuccessful $10 billion bid for Venezuelan-state-owned Citgo Petroleum's U.S. assets by Wendy Siegelman https://newstracs.com/devin-nunes-and-others-linked-to-trump-media-are-officers-of-a-company-that-bid-for-citgo/2026/01/01/ Learn from Venezuela's opposition: The Official Unofficial Record How do you count almost 12 million votes if you're not the government? This week, we bring you the extraordinary story of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who created the only verifiable public record of votes in their presidential election — and other stories of people trying to correct the official record with their own versions. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/848/the-official-unofficial-record Olga Lautman's Trump Tyranny Tracker: https://trumptyrannytracker.substack.com/  Venezuela raid enriches MAGA billionaire: The ouster of Maduro is a financial windfall for a prominent Trump-supporting billionaire, investor Paul Singer. https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/venezuela-raid-enriches-maga-billionaire?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email Opening clip: https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mbmostp3xk2j CNN Data Guru Reveals Trump's Devastating Drop in Approval Rating https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/cnn-data-guru-reveals-trump-105250680.html Trump admin sends tough private message to oil companies on Venezuela: The White House has told companies they must rebuild Venezuela's crude-pumping infrastructure if they want compensation for assets seized by Caracas. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezuela-oil-us-companies-return-00709782 The U.S.-Venezuela-Guyana Oil Triangle https://drilled.media/news/guyana-venezuela Gabbard abruptly ousted CIA Russia expert days after Trump-Putin meeting https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/28/politics/gabbard-abruptly-ousted-cia-russia-expert-days-after-trump-putin-meeting Tulsi Gabbard's history with Russia is even more concerning than you think https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tulsi-gabbard-russian-connection-dni-trump-syria-b2692244.html Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit!