Leroy N. Soetoro
2020-05-11 23:54:38 UTC
https://nypost.com/2020/05/09/ex-green-beret-behind-failed-coup-was-
desperate-for-money/
When he was planning his invasion of Venezuela, Jordan Goudreau compared
his mercenary forces to those of Alexander the Great in his most decisive
battle against the Persian kingdom.
Like the ancient warrior, Goudreau, a 43-year-old decorated former Special
Forces soldier, planned to strike deep into the heart of the enemy,
capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and collect a multimillion
dollar bounty.
But when his ragtag group of guerrillas docked last weekend in Macuto, a
coastal city 20 miles from the capital of Caracas, they seemed to have
more in common with the fumbling characters in Woody Allens 1971 spoof
Bananas about a band of misfits who unwittingly get caught up in a
Latin American revolution.
The mercenaries, including Venezuelan dissidents and two Americans, were
overwhelmed by a group of local fishermen when they washed ashore, largely
because Maduros forces knew they were coming and were lying in wait, a US
law enforcement source told The Post.
Cuban spies, who run all of Venezuelas counterintelligence, had tracked
Goudreau, a former Green Beret and self-styled security consultant, for
months as he helped train a small cadre of combatants in Colombia.
Goudreau himself strangely bragged about the coup in a tweet to President
Trump on May 4: Strikeforce incursion into Venezuela. 60 Venezuelan, 2
American ex Green Beret @realDonaldTrump
Despite the death of eight guerrilla fighters and the arrest of 13 others,
including former Special Forces soldiers Airan Berry and Luke Denman, who
have been paraded on Venezuelan national TV, Goudreau praised the
operation and said there were numerous cells still active in the
country, ready to attack Maduro and his cronies.
Ive got troops in the field, Goudreau told Factores de Poder, a Miami-
based YouTube channel that reports on Venezuela, shortly after the failed
coup. Ive been a freedom fighter my whole life. These people have a
right to fight for their country.
But Goudreaus main reason for organizing the coup may have had less to do
with freedom fighting, and more with an urgent need for cash, the source
told The Post. Goudreau, whose nascent security consultancy business is
struggling, was bent on cashing in on the $15 million reward from the
State Department for the capture of Maduro, who was indicted on drug
trafficking charges in Manhattan federal court in March.
Goudreau was clearly after the money and to promote his new security
company, said the source, who did not want to be identified. But the
whole thing was incredibly amateurish. Were still trying to piece it
together. This was no coup, not even close.
And while Maduro is exploiting the failed coup for maximum propaganda
purposes, attacking the US government and his political enemies in
Venezuela, who at one point backed the bizarre plot, Goudreau has other
problems on his hands.
The brawny commando with the square jaw and buzz cut has not only become
the subject of ridicule but he is now under federal investigation for arms
trafficking in Colombia, the source told The Post.
*****
Jordan Guy MacDonald Goudreau always wanted to be a hero, a modern-day GI-
Joe. But he was also an opportunist who was desperate to monetize his
combat experience after he left the service, friends told The Post.
The Canadian-born American soldier joined the Canadian Armed Forces while
completing a computer science degree at the University of Calgary in the
mid-1990s, according to his LinkedIn profile. A year later, in 1999, he
moved to Bethesda, Maryland, where he worked as a systems analyst for
Employee Health Programs, a drug testing firm.
But he longed for the battlefield, and two years later moved to
Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he trained at Fort Bragg to be a
medical sergeant and fire infantryman assigned to the 10th Special
Forces Group, an elite cadre of soldiers who specialize in unconventional
warfare and counter terrorism.
He deployed to Iraq from November 2006 to April 2007 and served two tours
in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2014 and was awarded with three Bronze Star
medals. But his military career ended four years ago after he suffered a
concussion in a parachuting accident and numerous back injuries.
Jordan is the kind of dude who the military calls to do the top tier
stuff that guys do that keep people safe, friend Frank Riley told The
Post. Hes well trained and has a heart for people. He would give his
life for his country.
Another friend, who served with the former Green Beret in Iraq, remembered
him as a fearless warrior. He was incredible, Drew White told Canadas
Globe and Mail last week. He was who you wanted in the trenches with
you. White said that he and Goudreau also served with Berry and Denman in
Iraq.
White, who now lives in Colorado and runs a home inspection company,
teamed up with Goudreau after they retired from the military to start
Silvercorp USA, a security firm launched in 2018, public records show. The
Melbourne, Florida-based firm was incorporated on Feb. 26, 2018, days
after the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead, records show.
Goudreau thought he had hit pay dirt with a scheme he devised to protect
students from random shooters. He wanted to charge parents $8.99 each to
embed former Special Forces soldiers at schools posing as teachers to
gather intelligence from students that could uncover potential threats.
The beauty of it is its all for the price of a Netflix subscription, so
its really hard to argue with me about, Well it costs too much. You
cant tell me that, Goudreau told the Washington Post in November 2018,
when he was pushing his services at an Orlando expo on school safety. When
a colleague suggested Goudreau could go to school boards and the
government for the cash, he responded vehemently.
But we dont want to, he said. We dont want that. We want private
money because its faster.
Goudreau did need money fast. In 2018, he had debts that topped $100,000,
said Riley, an Afghanistan War veteran who also helped Goudreau set up
Silvercorp. That year, as he was launching his business, Goudreau moved in
with Riley, who he had met through Warrior Games, a US Special Operations
competition for wounded ex-combatants, Riley said. Goudreau used Rileys
address in Melbourne to incorporate Silvercorp, public records show.
He was having a lot of problems with debts, Riley said. He had
separated from his wife and he was still paying her expenses in New York.
According to Riley, Goudreaus wife, June, lived in New York while
Goudreau was training in Germany. Public records show the last known
address for Goudreau is a post office box in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in
2012.
Beginning in 2012, Goudreau was investigated for allegedly defrauding the
Army of $62,000 in housing allowance payments. Goudreau, who did not
return The Posts calls for comment, said in other interviews that the
investigation was closed with no charges.
Still, desperate to pay off his debts, Goudreau began to take on private
security work, and boasted on Silvercorps website that he participated in
international security teams for the President of the United States as
well as the Secretary of Defense.
In February 2019, he was part of a team at a concert for Venezuelan aid
organized by billionaire Richard Branson in Colombia, where the scheme to
invade the country and liberate impoverished Venezuelans from Maduros
iron grip began to take shape.
Later, Goudreau met with Venezuelan soldiers who had deserted the country,
including Cliver Alcala, a retired major general in the Venezuelan army,
who was trying to lead 300 low-ranking deserters in Colombia to invade the
country.
Goudreau agreed to train the men and lead the operation, according to the
Associated Press. Last month, Alcala surrendered to US authorities after
his indictment on drug trafficking charges in March. He is now in custody
in New York awaiting federal trial in the case that alleges that Maduro
was the ringleader of a massive cocaine cartel.
Months after his first trip to Colombia in September 2019, Goudreau met
with Juan Jose Rendon, a Miami-based political strategist and Maduro
opponent who fled Venezuela in 2013. Rendon headed up a clandestine
coalition searching for ways to help Venezuelan opposition leader Juan
Guaido remove Maduro from power. Guaido, who won elections in 2018, is
seen as the countrys legitimate president by more than 60 countries,
including the US.
At their meeting, Goudreau told Rendon that he had 800 mercenaries ready
to swoop into Venezuela and asked for more than $200 million to complete
the job, the Washington Post reported. Although Rendon and his partners
initially agreed to the operation, they began to get cold feet when
Goudreau could not produce any evidence of a small army and demanded an
immediate payment of a $1.5 million retainer.
After the failed mission, it was the money that became a sticking point
for Goudreau. In the interview with Factores de Poder, he said he never
received a single cent for his work but continued to prepare his
fighting force anyway, going further into debt, he said.
A few weeks before the failed coup, Goudreau contacted Rendon through a
lawyer in order to collect on the retainer and made it known that if they
didnt pay up he would release the agreement to the press, Stars and
Stripes reported. In the interview with Factores de Poder, Goudreau
provided copies of pages from the contract and complained about never
receiving the retainer. Nevertheless, he ordered the operation to help
Venezuelans.
I just want to say to the Venezuelan people that theres people fighting
on your behalf, Goudreau said.
Riley said he wasnt surprised that Goudreau launched the failed coup with
almost no backing. Hes not a red tape kind of guy, he said. Hes the
right man for the job and hes used to doing things on his own. He doesnt
wait for anyone to help him.
--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.
Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump has boosted the economy, reduced illegal immigration,
appointed dozens of judges and created jobs.
Senile loser and NAMBLA supporter Nancy Pelosi got "Trumped" on February
5, 2020. "President Trump, Not Guilty."
desperate-for-money/
When he was planning his invasion of Venezuela, Jordan Goudreau compared
his mercenary forces to those of Alexander the Great in his most decisive
battle against the Persian kingdom.
Like the ancient warrior, Goudreau, a 43-year-old decorated former Special
Forces soldier, planned to strike deep into the heart of the enemy,
capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and collect a multimillion
dollar bounty.
But when his ragtag group of guerrillas docked last weekend in Macuto, a
coastal city 20 miles from the capital of Caracas, they seemed to have
more in common with the fumbling characters in Woody Allens 1971 spoof
Bananas about a band of misfits who unwittingly get caught up in a
Latin American revolution.
The mercenaries, including Venezuelan dissidents and two Americans, were
overwhelmed by a group of local fishermen when they washed ashore, largely
because Maduros forces knew they were coming and were lying in wait, a US
law enforcement source told The Post.
Cuban spies, who run all of Venezuelas counterintelligence, had tracked
Goudreau, a former Green Beret and self-styled security consultant, for
months as he helped train a small cadre of combatants in Colombia.
Goudreau himself strangely bragged about the coup in a tweet to President
Trump on May 4: Strikeforce incursion into Venezuela. 60 Venezuelan, 2
American ex Green Beret @realDonaldTrump
Despite the death of eight guerrilla fighters and the arrest of 13 others,
including former Special Forces soldiers Airan Berry and Luke Denman, who
have been paraded on Venezuelan national TV, Goudreau praised the
operation and said there were numerous cells still active in the
country, ready to attack Maduro and his cronies.
Ive got troops in the field, Goudreau told Factores de Poder, a Miami-
based YouTube channel that reports on Venezuela, shortly after the failed
coup. Ive been a freedom fighter my whole life. These people have a
right to fight for their country.
But Goudreaus main reason for organizing the coup may have had less to do
with freedom fighting, and more with an urgent need for cash, the source
told The Post. Goudreau, whose nascent security consultancy business is
struggling, was bent on cashing in on the $15 million reward from the
State Department for the capture of Maduro, who was indicted on drug
trafficking charges in Manhattan federal court in March.
Goudreau was clearly after the money and to promote his new security
company, said the source, who did not want to be identified. But the
whole thing was incredibly amateurish. Were still trying to piece it
together. This was no coup, not even close.
And while Maduro is exploiting the failed coup for maximum propaganda
purposes, attacking the US government and his political enemies in
Venezuela, who at one point backed the bizarre plot, Goudreau has other
problems on his hands.
The brawny commando with the square jaw and buzz cut has not only become
the subject of ridicule but he is now under federal investigation for arms
trafficking in Colombia, the source told The Post.
*****
Jordan Guy MacDonald Goudreau always wanted to be a hero, a modern-day GI-
Joe. But he was also an opportunist who was desperate to monetize his
combat experience after he left the service, friends told The Post.
The Canadian-born American soldier joined the Canadian Armed Forces while
completing a computer science degree at the University of Calgary in the
mid-1990s, according to his LinkedIn profile. A year later, in 1999, he
moved to Bethesda, Maryland, where he worked as a systems analyst for
Employee Health Programs, a drug testing firm.
But he longed for the battlefield, and two years later moved to
Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he trained at Fort Bragg to be a
medical sergeant and fire infantryman assigned to the 10th Special
Forces Group, an elite cadre of soldiers who specialize in unconventional
warfare and counter terrorism.
He deployed to Iraq from November 2006 to April 2007 and served two tours
in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2014 and was awarded with three Bronze Star
medals. But his military career ended four years ago after he suffered a
concussion in a parachuting accident and numerous back injuries.
Jordan is the kind of dude who the military calls to do the top tier
stuff that guys do that keep people safe, friend Frank Riley told The
Post. Hes well trained and has a heart for people. He would give his
life for his country.
Another friend, who served with the former Green Beret in Iraq, remembered
him as a fearless warrior. He was incredible, Drew White told Canadas
Globe and Mail last week. He was who you wanted in the trenches with
you. White said that he and Goudreau also served with Berry and Denman in
Iraq.
White, who now lives in Colorado and runs a home inspection company,
teamed up with Goudreau after they retired from the military to start
Silvercorp USA, a security firm launched in 2018, public records show. The
Melbourne, Florida-based firm was incorporated on Feb. 26, 2018, days
after the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead, records show.
Goudreau thought he had hit pay dirt with a scheme he devised to protect
students from random shooters. He wanted to charge parents $8.99 each to
embed former Special Forces soldiers at schools posing as teachers to
gather intelligence from students that could uncover potential threats.
The beauty of it is its all for the price of a Netflix subscription, so
its really hard to argue with me about, Well it costs too much. You
cant tell me that, Goudreau told the Washington Post in November 2018,
when he was pushing his services at an Orlando expo on school safety. When
a colleague suggested Goudreau could go to school boards and the
government for the cash, he responded vehemently.
But we dont want to, he said. We dont want that. We want private
money because its faster.
Goudreau did need money fast. In 2018, he had debts that topped $100,000,
said Riley, an Afghanistan War veteran who also helped Goudreau set up
Silvercorp. That year, as he was launching his business, Goudreau moved in
with Riley, who he had met through Warrior Games, a US Special Operations
competition for wounded ex-combatants, Riley said. Goudreau used Rileys
address in Melbourne to incorporate Silvercorp, public records show.
He was having a lot of problems with debts, Riley said. He had
separated from his wife and he was still paying her expenses in New York.
According to Riley, Goudreaus wife, June, lived in New York while
Goudreau was training in Germany. Public records show the last known
address for Goudreau is a post office box in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in
2012.
Beginning in 2012, Goudreau was investigated for allegedly defrauding the
Army of $62,000 in housing allowance payments. Goudreau, who did not
return The Posts calls for comment, said in other interviews that the
investigation was closed with no charges.
Still, desperate to pay off his debts, Goudreau began to take on private
security work, and boasted on Silvercorps website that he participated in
international security teams for the President of the United States as
well as the Secretary of Defense.
In February 2019, he was part of a team at a concert for Venezuelan aid
organized by billionaire Richard Branson in Colombia, where the scheme to
invade the country and liberate impoverished Venezuelans from Maduros
iron grip began to take shape.
Later, Goudreau met with Venezuelan soldiers who had deserted the country,
including Cliver Alcala, a retired major general in the Venezuelan army,
who was trying to lead 300 low-ranking deserters in Colombia to invade the
country.
Goudreau agreed to train the men and lead the operation, according to the
Associated Press. Last month, Alcala surrendered to US authorities after
his indictment on drug trafficking charges in March. He is now in custody
in New York awaiting federal trial in the case that alleges that Maduro
was the ringleader of a massive cocaine cartel.
Months after his first trip to Colombia in September 2019, Goudreau met
with Juan Jose Rendon, a Miami-based political strategist and Maduro
opponent who fled Venezuela in 2013. Rendon headed up a clandestine
coalition searching for ways to help Venezuelan opposition leader Juan
Guaido remove Maduro from power. Guaido, who won elections in 2018, is
seen as the countrys legitimate president by more than 60 countries,
including the US.
At their meeting, Goudreau told Rendon that he had 800 mercenaries ready
to swoop into Venezuela and asked for more than $200 million to complete
the job, the Washington Post reported. Although Rendon and his partners
initially agreed to the operation, they began to get cold feet when
Goudreau could not produce any evidence of a small army and demanded an
immediate payment of a $1.5 million retainer.
After the failed mission, it was the money that became a sticking point
for Goudreau. In the interview with Factores de Poder, he said he never
received a single cent for his work but continued to prepare his
fighting force anyway, going further into debt, he said.
A few weeks before the failed coup, Goudreau contacted Rendon through a
lawyer in order to collect on the retainer and made it known that if they
didnt pay up he would release the agreement to the press, Stars and
Stripes reported. In the interview with Factores de Poder, Goudreau
provided copies of pages from the contract and complained about never
receiving the retainer. Nevertheless, he ordered the operation to help
Venezuelans.
I just want to say to the Venezuelan people that theres people fighting
on your behalf, Goudreau said.
Riley said he wasnt surprised that Goudreau launched the failed coup with
almost no backing. Hes not a red tape kind of guy, he said. Hes the
right man for the job and hes used to doing things on his own. He doesnt
wait for anyone to help him.
--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.
Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump has boosted the economy, reduced illegal immigration,
appointed dozens of judges and created jobs.
Senile loser and NAMBLA supporter Nancy Pelosi got "Trumped" on February
5, 2020. "President Trump, Not Guilty."