In a rare softening of hostile relations, Caracas on Saturday freed seven detained Americans -- including five oil executives -- in exchange for the release of two nephews of Venezuela's first lady who were jailed in the United States for drug trafficking.
President Joe Biden issued the announcement that the Americans were on their way home.
"Today, after years of being wrongfully detained in Venezuela, we are bringing home Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, Jose Pereira, Matthew Heath, and Osman Khan," Biden said in a statement.
The negotiated release of "two young Venezuelans" held in the United States was confirmed in a near-simultaneous statement by Caracas -- whose relations with Washington have been severely strained for years.
While Venezuelan authorities did not name the pair, they were identified by the senior US official as Francisco Flores de Freitas and his cousin Efrain Antonio Campos Flores -- both nephews of President Nicolas Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores.
"As a result of various conversations held since March 5 with representatives of the government of the United States, the release of two young Venezuelans unjustly imprisoned in that country has been achieved," said the communique from Caracas.
Arrested in 2015 in a US sting operation in Haiti, the cousins were sentenced two years later to 18 years in prison for plotting to smuggle 800 kilos (1,760 pounds) of cocaine into the United States.
The Venezuelan government says they were framed.
Those freed include five employees of Houston-based Citgo — Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo and Jose Pereira — who were lured to Venezuela right before Thanksgiving in 2017 to attend a meeting at the headquarters of the company's parent, state-run-oil giant PDVSA. Once there, they were hauled away by masked security agents who busted into a Caracas conference room.
The men were convicted of embezzlement in 2020 in a trial marred by delays and irregularities and sentenced to between eight years and 13 years in prison for a never-executed proposal to refinance billions in the oil company’s bonds.
Also released was Matthew Heath, a former US Marine corporal from Tennessee who was arrested in 2020 at a roadblock in Venezuela, and a Florida man, Osman Khan, who was arrested in January.
The State Department had regarded all the men as wrongfully detained.
