Venezuela Releases 7 Jailed Americans; US Frees 2 Prisoners

WASHINGTON—Venezuela has freed seven imprisoned Americans in exchange for the United States releasing two nephews of regime leader Nicolás Maduro’s wife who had been jailed for years on drug smuggling conspiracy convictions, the White House said Saturday.

The swap of the Americans, including five oil executives held for nearly five years, follows months of back channel diplomacy by Washington’s top hostage negotiator and other U.S. officials.

“I can’t believe it,” Cristina Vadell, the daughter of Tomeu Vadell, one of the freed Americans, said when contacted by The Associated Press on Saturday. Holding back tears of joy on her 31st birthday, she said: “This is the best birthday present ever. I’m just so happy.”

The transfer took place Saturday in an unspecified country between the United States and Venezuela after the men in the deal arrived from their respective locations in separate planes, the Biden administration said.

“These individuals will soon be reunited with their families and back in the arms of their loved ones where they belong,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “Today, after years of being wrongfully detained in Venezuela, we are bringing home” the seven men, whom the president cited by name. “We celebrate that seven families will be whole once more.”

Maduro’s regime said in a statement that it was releasing the American citizens as a humanitarian gesture. It praised the diplomacy that resulted in the freeing of the two “unjustly imprisoned” Venezuelans imprisoned in the United States and said it “hopes for the preservation of peace and harmony with all the nations of our region and the world.”

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

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