Inside Caracas’ ‘spooks hotel’: US takeover nerve center after Maduro’s abduction

Over breakfast in one of Caracas’ most luxurious hotels, U.S. officials, diplomats and spies discuss Venezuela’s past, present and future in hushed tones, fragments of conversation touching on election roadmaps, political fragmentation and oil-fueled economic growth.

The murmured discussions are not in Caribbean Spanish by Venezuelan officials pondering their country’s direction after President Nicolas Maduro’s abduction. The accents are North American, belonging to the U.S. personnel now calling the shots after President Donald Trump’s controversial military intervention on Jan. 3.

Neighboring tables are occupied by huddles of musclebound U.S. Marines, tattoos covering bulging calves, baseball caps on heads and walkie-talkies strapped to hips.

“How long will you be staying, sir?” a receptionist asks one of countless U.S. government guests checking in downstairs.

“Oh, 26 or 27 days,” the man replies in thickly accented Spanish.

Since Trump’s decision to snatch Maduro in January and reboot relations with his successors, the five-star hotel has become the nerve center of Washington’s efforts to steer what some now call a U.S. protectorate – and which Trump has even said he hopes to turn into the 51st state.

“It’s [effectively] the US embassy. I don’t think anybody’s going to work at the actual embassy,” said Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based political analyst for Crisis Group.

Having been closed for seven years since diplomatic relations collapsed in 2019, “the embassy building is full of rats and cockroaches, and it’s being fumigated,” Gunson explained.

The conversations overheard in the JW Marriott’s restaurant offer a fascinating insight into Venezuela’s plight as it emerges from nearly 13 years of economic mayhem and authoritarian rule under Maduro.

One sunny afternoon, a North American energy specialist sat on the veranda holding a conference call with colleagues back home about the dire state of Venezuela’s electrical grid, the cause of frequent blackouts even in the capital.

“The distribution is a mess – that’s the biggest issue right now … the wiring, the transformers – and the software is a mess,” he said, before grumbling: “The Chinese came in and did their little Chinese thing, which did not work.”

Another morning, diplomats debated the likelihood of fresh elections, which opposition leaders hope will soon be called, but which Maduro’s heir and former vice president, interim President Delcy Rodriguez, seems in no rush to hold.

Throughout the day, English-speaking officials and fortune hunters roam the 17-floor redbrick hotel with nearly 300 rooms, a gym and a palm-flanked pool. Bullet-proof SUVs wait outside to ferry guests, including Trump’s top diplomat to Venezuela, John Barrett, around town.

Two buildings down the street, not far from the stock exchange, a large propaganda poster of a smiling Maduro still hangs from a government office.

In the hotel’s restaurant, corridors and meeting rooms, patrons and visitors plot what some locals call “the corporate takeover” of Venezuela to the sound of Brazilian bossa nova. One particular favorite on the hotel playlist is Tom Jobim’s Triste, whose Portuguese lyrics offer a poetic warning to gringos: “It’s sad to know that nobody can live off fantasies, that will never come to pass, that will never happen. The dreamer must wake up.”

Across the street sits the Juan Sebastian Bar, a jazz and salsa nightclub named after Johann Sebastian Bach, where foreign visitors can let off steam.

If the $250-300-a-night JW Marriott – or “the spooks hotel” as some journalists call it – is the HQ of the U.S. presence in Venezuela, another luxury hotel a few miles away is where many big-money deals are done.

Since Maduro’s downfall, foreign tycoons have been flocking to the Cayena, where rooms cost about $600 a night, wagering that even if Rodriguez stays in power with no transition to democracy, Venezuela’s economic future looks bright.

One deal-maker who spent time there recalled encountering at least four foreign billionaires they could identify – but believed there were others whose names they did not know. “They never give you a card. They don’t give you their last names … and what is very interesting to me is that they are all asking about the same things: mining and privatizations,” they said.

The Trumpian takeover has generated widespread discomfort, even among patriotic members of Venezuela’s elites who were glad to see Maduro go but privately bristle at the suggestion their country is being turned into a U.S. colony. After giving Rodriguez his blessing in January, Trump warned she would face an even worse fate than Maduro if she failed to toe the U.S. line.

On the streets there is anger too. During a Workers’ Day rally on May 1, socialist economist Oswaldo Pacheco marched toward riot police wielding a white banner denouncing the government’s “neocolonial collaboration” with Trump. “It’s a complete capitulation,” complained Pacheco, 53, accusing Venezuela’s new rulers of following U.S. orders “to the letter.” “Clearly these [US] demands are not about bringing us democracy but about plundering our resources and increasing worker exploitation,” he said.

Among Caracas-bound capitalists, the mood is buoyant, even if huge doubts remain over Venezuela’s future and, above all, its democracy.

At a third luxury hotel, the Renaissance, a Venezuelan oil man waxed lyrical about his country’s post-Maduro prospects. “This is going to be the best country in the world,” he predicted, declaring: “I’m more than optimistic.”