The USA is taking control of SEBIN, Venezuela's political police, with the blessing of Diosdado Cabello, the Venezuelan investigative journalist David Placer said on NTN24 on Wednesday. According to Placer, U.S. officials have taken operational control of parts of SEBIN's facilities in Caracas and other regions. "The door was opened for the United States from inside the regime's own repressive structure," he said. "And we believe the door was opened by Diosdado Cabello himself, so that it can begin supervising and authorising operations."

Neither Washington nor Caracas has confirmed or denied it, and no document or witness has been made public.

SEBIN is the agency Venezuelans fear most. UN investigators have documented torture of political prisoners in its jails at El Helicoide and La Tumba in Caracas, and found that it amounted to crimes against humanity. The agency answers to Venezuela's vice presidency, held by Delcy Rodríguez, who has run the country as acting president since the USA attacked Venezuela and kidnapped Nicolás Maduro on 3 January.

A federal court in New York has charged him with narco-terrorism and the State Department offers up to $25 million for information leading to his arrest. That has not stopped Washington from working with him. In July, after the earthquakes, the head of U.S. Southern Command, General Francis Donovan, met him, and the USA's top diplomat in Caracas, John Barrett, was photographed holding his arm. Asked whether the U.S. position on Cabello had changed, Barrett would not answer. In June, U.S. forces killed the Tren de Aragua leader Niño Guerrero in Venezuela in what Pete Hegseth called "full collaboration with Venezuelan security forces".

Venezuelans were told Maduro's fall would free them from the men who ran his prisons. If Placer is right, the prisons are still open and the man the USA calls a narco-terrorist is now handing Washington the keys.