X user @OrlvndoA reported over the past hour that President Donald Trump confirmed to New York Times officials an undercover U.S. operation in Venezuela's Zulia state targeting a drug trafficking plant with collateral activities, authorized by Trump on October 15 and executed with plausible deniability. @OrlvndoA described the operation as designed for no public announcement, serving as a U.S. message identifying key drug trafficking figures, with the only confirmations from Trump and officials to the New York Times. This aligns with Trump's December 27 statement claiming a U.S. strike on a major Venezuelan drug facility two nights prior, as reported in a Bloomberg article and a Christmas Eve video of an explosion in Zulia's San Francisco industrial zone shared previously. Separately, X user @tom_bike corrected in the reporting window that CV-22B Osprey tail number 0073 at Aguadilla Airport in Puerto Rico belongs to the 20th Special Operations Squadron, 27th Special Operations Wing at Cannon Air Force Base, which conducts low-level penetrations for clandestine infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply. The Osprey sighting follows earlier reports of V-22 Ospreys deploying from Kirtland Air Force Base toward Puerto Rico and U.S. Air Force Special Operations aircraft landings at Aguadilla, as noted in prior periods on December 29.
