Politics
Wife of former American detainee released after more than a year in Venezuelan prison
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The wife of a once-detained American citizen was released this week after being held for more than a year in a Venezuelan prison following their arrest while traveling to the South American nation to meet her family.
Renzo Humanchumo Castillo, a Peruvian- American who was detained for close to a year by Venezuelan authorities, told Fox News Digital that his Venezuelan wife, Rosa Carolina Chirino Zambrano, as well as her friend and the taxi driver they were with, were released after being imprisoned and charged with espionage due to their contact with him.
He spoke with Zambrano following her release, he said, their first contact since December 2024 when they were confronted by Venezuelan authorities near the country’s border with Colombia.
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Renzo Humanchumo Castillo, a Peruvian- American who is a former Venezuelan detainee, and his wife, Rosa Carolina Chirino Zambrano, were detained in Venezuela after he was accused of plotting to kill Nicolas Maduro. (Courtesy of Renzo Humanchumo Castillo; Getty Images)
“It was surreal,” Castillo recalled of the conversation. “She got teary, you know, but she was like… ‘hey baby, I’m out.’ Now my main concern is how do I get her here with me.”
Castillo, who lives in Southern California, was detained after crossing the border into Venezuela, along with his wife and her friend, who were in a taxi. After being questioned at length by Venezuelan authorities, he was charged with terrorism and conspiring to kill Nicolas Maduro, then the country’s president, who was recently captured by U.S. forces in a daring military operation.
“They got me as a professional hitman sent by the CIA, and (that) I was there to overthrow the government and kill Maduro and Diosdado (Cabello),” Castillo said.
A Venezuelan national guard’s tank remains outside El Rodeo prison in Venezuela. ((Photo by Pedro MATTEY / AFP via Getty Images)
Diosdado Cabello, known as the “octopus,” runs Venezuela’s security apparatus and is considered one of the country’s most feared government figures. The U.S. has accused him of narco-terrorism and several other crimes. The State Department has issued a $25 million reward for his arrest and conviction.
“Cabello, he presented me on the news, and then he put me on a chart saying that I came here to overthrow the government,” Castillo said. “Me and some other Americans.”
After spending months in Venezuela’s notorious “El Rodeo” prison, Castillo was freed in a prisoner swap in July 2025. However, his wife remained in detention.
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A woman uses a mobile phone on a tent set up by relatives of political prisoners outside El Rodeo I prison in Guatire, Miranda State, east of Caracas on Jan. 13. ((Photo by Pedro MATTEY / AFP via Getty Images))
Castillo said he was initially questioned by Venezuelan authorities who accused him of being a “commando” or some kind of military operator.
A search of his cell phone only heightened their suspicions when they found images of him wearing a protective vest and other tactical gear. However, Castillo said he works in private security and executive protection and has never served in the military.
The gear was used for work, he said.
He was eventually detained and transferred to “El Rodeo” where he endured beatings and other forms of torture, he said. In one instance, he was hung by his arms like a piñata and beaten.
“They had me hanging. And like my feet were still kind of touching the floor,” he said. “They just hit me for maybe at least five to eight hours, just hanging… just not even questions anymore. But you can feel the joy, how much they wanted to hit me, hurt me, you know?”
Castillo got in trouble several times while at the prison, he said, for speaking out of a window in his cell where he would sometimes get updates on events outside the facility. Stressed about not knowing what happened to his wife, he went on a hunger strike in an effort to write a letter to her, he said.
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Members of the Bolivarian National Militia patrol on a street in the 23 de Enero neighborhood during a military exercise, in Caracas, Venezuela January 23, 2025. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)
Castillo met Zambrano during a visit to Peru to reunite with old classmates from grade school. One night, he went to a bar with friends where the pair met and struck up a friendship.
That was followed by multiple trips to Peru, where she lived, before they got married. On his last journey, the couple met in Colombia and traveled via road to her home country to meet his in-laws for the first time, Castillo said.
After crossing the Colombia-Venezuela border, they were separately detained and their misfortune began.
Since Zambrano is a Venezuelan citizen, she was not part of the prisoner swap that freed her husband. Despite now being free, she remains under the watchful eye of the Venezuelan government, Castillo said.
In the meantime, Castillo is working to get Zambrano to California. He said he plans to reach out to the State Department. Despite his wife’s citizenship status, his optimism heightened following Maduro’s capture earlier this month.
A side-by-side photo of President Donald Trump and Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. (Joe Raedle/Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)
“It was that moment when, inside of me, I felt I was going to be able to see my wife again,” he said. “The chances of me seeing my wife again just went from like, from nothing to like a hundred. It really lifted my spirit.”
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“It took Americans and it took foreigners to be kidnapped for the world to put eyes on Venezuela,” he said.
On Tuesday, Venezuela’s interim government released at least four Americans imprisoned during Maduro’s regime. The release was the first involving U.S. citizens since Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces.
“We welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela,” a State Department official said Tuesday. “This is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.”
Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed Federal agents as they make their way into an armored car en route to a Federal courthouse in Manhattan on January 5, 2026 in New York City. (XNY/Star Max/GC Images)
On Wednesday, Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez said she spoke with President Donald Trump by phone during a “long and courteous” conversation. The pair discussed a “bilateral work agenda for the benefit of our peoples, as well as pending matters between our governments.”
On Truth Social, Trump said topics of discussion included oil, minerals, trade and national security.
“This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL. Venezuela will soon be great and prosperous again, perhaps more so than ever before!” he wrote.
Castillo praised the Trump administration for addressing the Maduro regime and his action in Venezuela.
“I feel like the current administration is doing the hard work that it hasn’t been done,” he said. “Those things that sometimes people don’t want to see and are afraid to say, well, they’re doing it now. And I am very thankful to the administration. I’m very thankful to my president. Very thankful to (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio, because they did all of this. They got us out.”
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While discussing the mystery surrounding UFOs, Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, said he believes what people think of as aliens are actually “demons.”
While interviewing Vance, conservative commentator Benny Johnson asked the vice president, “You gonna release all the UFO files?”
“Ah, we’re workin’ on it,” Vance said.
He explained that when he took office he “was obsessed with the UFO files” but ended up being busy with other issues.
Vance asserted that he will “get to the bottom” of the matter.
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Vice President JD Vance boards Air Force Two on March 18, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (Elizabeth Frantz-Pool/Getty Images)
“I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons anyway,” Vance noted.
Prompted by Johnson, Vance later elaborated on his view.
“Well, look, I, I think that celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people — I think that the desire to describe everything celestial… to describe it as aliens — I mean every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there, and there are things that are very difficult to explain,” he said.
“And I naturally go — when I hear about, sort of, extra-natural phenomenon — that’s where I go to is the Christian understanding that, you know, there’s a lotta good out there, but there’s also some evil out there,” he continued.
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Vice President JD Vance and President Donald Trump attend the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace on Feb. 19, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
He added that he believes that among “the devil’s great tricks is to convince people he never existed.”
Last month, President Donald Trump said he would order the release of files pertaining to the issue of aliens and UFOs.
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Vice President JD Vance speaks onstage at Engineering Design Services, Inc. on March 18, 2026, in Auburn Hills, Mich. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
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“Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” the president declared in a February Truth Social post.
How would you feel about getting a dream gig only to see it end in disgrace because of, well, you?
That’s what Gregory Bovino gets to think about for the rest of his life. Friday is the Border Patrol lifer’s last day on the job after 30 years — and he ain’t leaving because he wants to.
For the last year, the self-described “hillbilly” was the personification of the Trump administration’s xenophobic deportation deluge. Helicopter invasions of apartment complexes, tear gas canisters thrown into large crowds, defying court orders, glamorous photo shoots: There was no municipality too big, no tactic too crazy, no quote too incendiary for Bovino to take on while he treated immigrant neighborhoods like the shores of Normandy.
The North Carolina native’s caravan of cruelty quickly earned him a promotion from El Centro sector chief to Border Patrol commander at large, a new position crafted just for him. He embraced the role of migra bogeyman like a tween boy scarfing down a bowl of Warheads, always promising more deportations, more chaos, more more.
Not anymore.
In January, Border Patrol agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti during a protest against them a few weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer did the same to Renée Good, a mother of three. Bovino threw napalm on the matter by claiming Pretti wanted to “massacre law enforcement” without offering any evidence. The incidents so soured the public on immigration agents that a Public Religion Research Institute poll released this week showed only 35% of Americans surveyed approved of how Trump is handling immigration, compared with 48% a year ago.
Bovino was sent back down to El Centro and lost his privileges on social media, where he had long posted cringe-inducing videos about what a swell guy he was. Even Trump turned on his migra man, telling Fox News that Bovino was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy … and in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good [in Minneapolis].”
I should’ve warned Bovino the one time we met that failure was his fate.
The setting: the Fox 11 Los Angeles studios in July. Bovino and I were in to do separate interviews with the station’s former anchor Elex Michaelson. Bovino was in the middle of his Los Angeles invasion, which saw immigration agents lay siege to MacArthur Park, storm Home Depots and car washes and show up outside the Japanese American National Museum while politicians inside were decrying Trump.
Dressed in full Border Patrol uniform, complete with a clipped-on walkie-talkie on his shoulder, the guy was billing himself as a modern-day Charles Martel defending the homeland from invading infidels. The nasal-voiced Bovino rambled to Michaelson about how “Ma and Pa America” deserved a country free from undocumented immigrants and vowed to remain in Los Angeles “until the operation is over.”
Then-U.S. Border Patrol commander at large Gregory Bovino, center, marches with Border Patrol agents toward the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles after a show of force outside the Japanese American National Museum on Aug. 14.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
After his interview, Bovino and three Border Patrol agents strolled into the greenroom to grab some homemade cookies while I sat on a couch. He looked me in the eye while bending down to sign Michaelson’s guest book, as if he expected me to not only recognize him but say something.
It was like staring at someone doing an impersonation that was one part Lt. Col. Kilgore from “Apocalypse Now” and two parts Henery Hawk, the short, brash Looney Tunes character that was always trying to capture the much larger Foghorn Leghorn. He really thought that his scorched-earth assault on L.A. would defeat the city and persuade other communities to offer no pushback once Bovino’s self-titled “Green Machine” trolled into town.
The opposite happened.
People who had never bothered with politics — even some who voted for Trump or at least agreed with deporting immigrants with criminal convictions — rose up to resist. Everywhere became a front — social media, the streets, courtrooms — and activists across Southern California began to share notes among themselves and with communities nationwide to prepare them for la migra. Bovino flailed back at every affront instead of focusing on his mission, not realizing his recklessness was eroding public support for his cause and threatening it altogether.
Really, Bovino lost the day he has long claimed as a victory: the Battle of MacArthur Park.
That’s when he persuaded the Trump administration to send a skeptical National Guard alongside his men to surround the historic L.A. green space in the ludicrously named Operation Excalibur. Armed vehicles parked on Wilshire Boulevard. A grinning Bovino strutted around with media in tow. A wannabe cavalry unit, anchored in the center by an agent on a white horse, swept through a soccer field where children were attending day camp just minutes before.
No one was arrested or detained that day. Instead, Bovino left to a chorus of cuss words and boo birds. The exercise allowed Americans to see the folly of burning millions of taxpayer dollars just so someone could star in a TikTok reel. It also broke the spell Bovino had cast over many critics — myself included — who had feared he truly was an unstoppable Punisher.
Nah, he was just a spiky-haired pendejo.
If Bovino was as smart as he thinks he is, he would’ve followed the longtime strategy of another longtime immigration enforcer. Trump border czar Tom Homan executed a years-long roundup under the Obama administration with numbers Trump has yet to reach and with nowhere near as much public rancor. Homan, who loves the camera almost as much as Bovino, knew then and now that an issue as explosive as deportations must be approached quietly if it’s to be done successfully.
Instead, not only does he have to clean up Bovino’s mess, there’s now a real chance that the Republicans will lose the midterms because Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 are now furious at his administration. That’s why even Trump is now telling Republicans to tone down their anti-immigrant rhetoric, stat.
Gracias, Bovino!
You thought you would go down in U.S. history as a domestic Patton, a borderlands Sherman. Instead, your last week coincided with the publication of a New York Times profile of you railing at enemies while downing coffee at a burger bar in El Centro.
You called Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott “weak-kneed,” mocked Homan and said you could’ve deported 100 million people — a radically racist number considering that even the Center for Immigration Studies, which has long pushed for reduced immigration of all kinds, estimated a record 15.4 million illegal immigrants were in this country at the start of Trump’s second term.
Instead, you’re heading off to the Tar Heel State to spend your days hunting … coyotes.
“Maybe I get me some dogs and we go hard,” you told the New York Times. “I’ll take it in my own hands.”
Which reminds me of another hapless cartoon character who thought himself a genius but who kept screwing things up in ceaseless pursuit of his quarry: Wile E. Coyote.
As anyone who has ever seen his buildings knows, Donald Trump has always liked to see his name displayed prominently. It’s become a hallmark of his presidency, to the point that the Treasury Department announced on Thursday that President Trump’s signature will appear on U.S. dollars later this year, a first for a sitting U.S. president.
The move is the latest reflecting a push to imprint his personal brand on Washington and the nation in ways that could outlast his presidency.
In total, since the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, there have been more than a dozen instances of his name, image or signature emblazoned on a variety of American initiatives and institutions. Some changes seem as if they could be lasting, some are caught up in the courts, and others may never get off the ground.
Here is a look at that ever-growing list.
Already approved uses
Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images, Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
U.S. Treasury
Eric Lee/The New York Times
Eric Lee/The New York Times
Trump Card
TrumpRX
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who runs Medicare and Medicaid, has said that Mr. Trump was not involved in picking the name. “We thought it had a catchy element to it,” he said.
Trump Accounts
Department of Interior, via Center for Biological Diversity
U.S. Navy
U.S. Air Force
Proposed uses
Johnny Milano/The New York Times
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Shawn Thew/EPA, via Shutterstock
Washington Commanders
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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