Venezuela Claims Video Of U.S. Forces Destroying Cartel Vessel Is Fake And Made With AI

A Venezuelan official claimed the video shared by the White House on Tuesday that showed a vessel being destroyed by U.S. forces off the South American country's coast was made with artificial intelligence.

Concretely, Communication Minister Freddy Ñañez said in a Telegram channel that "it seems" Secretary of State Marco Rubio "keeps lying to his president."

"After getting him between a rock and a hard place, now he gives him an AI video as 'proof,'" Ñañez added. "Marco Rubio, stop trying to encourage a war and trying to stain President Donald Trump's hands. Venezuela doesn't pose a threat."

Trump revealed at the Oval Office that U.S. forces "shot out a drug-carrying boat" coming from Venezuela as part of the deployment of troops and warships. "We just literally shot out a drug-carrying boat." "There were a lot of drugs on that boat. There's more where that came from," the president added. "They came from Venezuela."

Later he said on social media post that the attack "resulted in 11 terrorists killed." "No U.S. soldiers were hurt. Let this be a warning to anyone even considering sending drugs into the United States. Beware," he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also confirmed the attack, detailing that the strike was lethal. "As POTUS just announced moments ago, today the U.S. military conducted a lethal strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization," Rubio said in a social media publication.

The Pentagon said the strike and the ongoing deployment are part of a strategy to disrupt Latin American cartels, which Washington blames for fueling fentanyl and cocaine flows into U.S. cities.

The strike is the most serious confrontation yet in the standoff between the Trump administration and Venezuela since the Republican returned to the White House. Earlier this month, Trump secretly signed a directive authorizing military force against cartels declared terrorist organizations, according to The New York Times.

The White House also announced a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest, accusing him of heading the so-called Cartel of the Suns, a network allegedly involving senior Venezuelan officials and linked to Colombian guerrillas and Mexican traffickers.

Maduro has ordered Venezuelan troops to mobilize and called on militias and volunteers to prepare for a possible foreign intervention. "If Venezuela is attacked, we will not hesitate to defend our sovereignty," he said.