GÜIRIA, Venezuela — Since early September, U.S. military strikes on small vessels accused by the Trump administration of moving drugs have destroyed at least 17 boats and killed more than 60 people. The administration has described the crews as narco-terrorists and cartel members, even saying each sunken boat saved tens of thousands of American lives. The Associated Press investigation into the identities of some of the dead finds a more complicated reality.
AP reporters identified four men killed in the strikes and gathered details about at least five others through dozens of interviews in coastal villages on Venezuela’s northeastern Paria Peninsula. Relatives, neighbors and acquaintances said most of those slain were not cartel leaders or seasoned narco-terrorists but working-class men — fishermen, day laborers, a bus driver, a motorcycle taxi driver — many crewing drug boats for only the first or second time.
Interviews indicate the crews were often paid roughly $500 per trip, a sum that can be irresistible in one of Venezuela’s poorest regions. Sucre state, once home to factories, a university and processing plants, now suffers shuttered industries, scarce public services and frequent power and water outages. Men like these, facing few legitimate opportunities and low monthly incomes, sometimes accept offers to navigate or crew small, fast fishing skiffs loaded with packages bound for nearby islands such as Trinidad.
Relatives and residents spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals from local traffickers, Venezuelan authorities or U.S. forces. Many said they were outraged that men who would formerly have been intercepted and charged were instead killed without due process. In the past, U.S. interdiction typically led to arrests and federal prosecutions, giving suspects a day in court; family members said that option was taken away.
The U.S. government has argued it is fighting an armed conflict with drug cartels and has labeled cartel members unlawful combatants. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told the AP that the Defense Department has consistently held that its intelligence confirmed the individuals involved in these operations were narco-terrorists and that the department stands by that assessment. The Trump administration has also intensified pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during the same period, increasing rewards for his capture and beefing up U.S. military activity in the region.
Those the AP profiled include:
– Robert Sánchez, 42, a Güiria native who dropped out of school and followed his father into fishing. Considered one of the peninsula’s best pilots, Sánchez knew local currents so well he could navigate at night without instruments. He worked as a hired crewmember earning roughly $100 a month from fishing and dreamed of affording a 75-horsepower engine to run his own boat. Relatives said economic pressure and that goal led him to accept a short smuggling trip; after he left, he did not return. His youngest child struggled to accept the loss.
– Luis “Che” Martínez, about 60, a longtime local crime boss who trafficked people and drugs. Martínez had previously been jailed after a December 2020 accident in which a boat he operated capsized, killing about two dozen people, including two of his sons and a granddaughter. Neighbors said he resumed smuggling after his release. He is believed to have been among those killed in the first known strike on Sept. 2. President Trump quickly asserted the vessel had been carrying drugs and that its crew belonged to a Venezuelan gang; Martínez’s relatives disputed that specific claim. They identified him in a circulated photo of a body that washed ashore in Trinidad by a distinctive, ostentatious watch strapped to the wrist.
– Dushak Milovcic, 24, who had left Venezuela’s National Guard Academy and started working for smugglers as a lookout. Though inexperienced at sea, acquaintances said he was promoted into boat crew roles because of his willingness to take risks and the lure of better pay.
– Juan Carlos “El Guaramero” Fuentes, a transit-bus driver whose vehicle broke down. With fares reduced because he could not operate, he faced mounting hardship and, according to villagers, agreed to join a smuggling crew. Friends said higher-level traffickers had been avoiding sea runs because of the threat of U.S. strikes, and they increasingly hired novices like Fuentes for trips. He told friends he was nervous on his first run but felt it went smoothly; he was later killed in a missile strike.
Residents said at least two of the men were low-level career criminals and one was a known local boss who contracted smuggling services to traffickers. Several were crewing boats for only a couple of trips. The craft used in these operations were often open-hulled fishing skiffs fitted with powerful outboard engines to reach nearby islands.
Venezuelan officials have condemned the strikes, calling them extrajudicial executions and denying the government harbors traffickers. Caracas has not acknowledged that Venezuelan citizens were killed in the attacks, and spokespeople did not respond to AP requests for comment. Relatives in the region said information is scarce because criminal groups and state authorities suppress reporting; they learned of deaths through word-of-mouth, veiled social media posts and searches by local officials of the homes of the missing.
The administration’s public statements have been stark. President Trump has asserted that each interdicted or destroyed vessel prevented tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the United States, a claim critics say conflates different kinds of drugs: the vulnerable boats appear to have been carrying cocaine, not the synthetic opioids such as fentanyl that are responsible for a large share of recent U.S. overdose deaths.
So far, U.S. forces have targeted at least nine boats in the Caribbean, with administration officials saying at least three of those departed from Venezuela. The strikes have occurred amid broader U.S. measures aimed at weakening Maduro’s government, including a larger military footprint in the Caribbean and Justice Department actions. Families of those killed say they want answers and the chance for due process, but many fear speaking openly. “I want an answer, but who can I ask?” one relative said.
The AP’s reporting does not dispute that many of the men were involved in smuggling. Instead, it paints a portrait of a mix of participants — from desperate laborers taking a risky way to feed children to repeat offenders and local bosses — and raises questions about who is being targeted and how those decisions are made. For families on Venezuela’s northeastern shore, the loss is both personal and emblematic of the broader economic collapse and lawlessness that push ordinary men toward dangerous work at sea.