Image of bloodied Venezuela leader in handcuffs is AI-generated
- Published on January 8, 2026 at 08:07
- Updated on January 8, 2026 at 09:52
- 2 min read
- By Dene-Hern CHEN, AFP Australia
After US forces snatched Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a lightning raid in January 2026, a wave of misinformation about the military operation flooded social media. Among it is an AI-generated image of the deposed president in handcuffs wearing a bloodied button-down shirt. An analysis of the circulating visual, which differs from pictures published by the US government, found several errors that indicate it was fabricated.
"Maduro has been captured by US troops," reads a January 3, 2026 Facebook post by an Australia-based user in simplified Chinese.
It appears to show the deposed Venezuelan leader in handcuffs with blood on his shirt, surrounded by soldiers.
The fabricated image also spread elsewhere on Facebook and X among users in Africa, India, and Germany with a similar claim.
Seized on January 3 in an operation that saw American forces swooping into Caracas, the authoritarian left-wing leader and his wife were extracted from Venezuela amid intense bombing (archived here and here).
They pleaded not guilty in a New York courthouse January 5 to drug trafficking and other charges, while President Donald Trump has said the United States will temporarily "run" the oil-rich South American nation as it oversees a transition (archived here and here).
In the aftermath of Maduro's seizure, AFP has debunked several misleading claims about the event, ranging from old videos used to depict the Delta Force's operation to AI-generated footage of celebrations of his ouster.
This image of a handcuffed Maduro is also AI-generated, according to an analysis using The Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify.
While the image is shared widely across social media, it has not appeared in official sources.
Trump shared a photo of the deposed president on Truth Social on January 4 wearing a tracksuit and dark glasses "on board the USS Iwo Jima", but Maduro is not bloodied (archived link).
AFP also distributed screengrabs of Maduro taken from the X account of Rapid Response 47, the official White House rapid response account when he was escorted inside the headquarters of the US Drug Enforcement Administration on January 3, 2026.
None of the screengrabs showed him in a bloodstained attire.
A closer examination of the fabricated image also reveals some visual inconsistencies.
For example, there is a missing pinky finger on the soldier's gloved hand on the right side of the image. Maduro's button-down shirt has blood stains, but his white shirt underneath is pristine.
There is also a deep scar travelling up and across Maduro's forehead in the fabricated image -- more pronounced than how it typically appears, as seen in a picture shot by AFP photographer Pedro Mattey in July 2025.
AFP has fact-checked several misleading claims related to Venezuela's crisis.
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