In the early hours of January 3, 2026, Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores weren’t the only ones sleeping at Fort Tiuna; just moments before the bombs fell during Operation Absolute Resolute, and Delta Force commandos captured the presidential couple. Within the vast perimeter of this military camp, the most significant of the Venezuelan Army, located southwest of Caracas, not only the numerous troops were present, but also several thoroughbred horses.
This fortress has been a traditional equestrian enclave for decades. However, the horses that rested close to Maduro’s bunker were of a different specialty: quarter horses suitable for racing and cattle herding. Their presence there was explained by the fact that at least two years prior to the attack, the facility was home to a sort of coleadero arena, where chavista elites mingled with their business class allies, sometimes referred to as “enchufados,” all around a cowboy fantasy inspired by the American Wild West.
The practice of team penning, a cattle herding method that originated in California and evolved as a competitive sport, was solidified with the involvement of close relatives of Cilia Flores, who participated and even became champions in this western discipline. A part of the most crucial military base in Venezuela turned into a venue for an exclusive entertainment activity, out of reach for those with limited finances, imported directly from the United States.
After reviewing the database of the National Association of Western Events in Venezuela (Asowest) and speaking to two sources related to the team penning world—whose identities are kept confidential for safety—Armando.info confirmed that at least 10 direct or indirect family members of Flores were actively engaging in this sport: tropical cowboys who had no qualms about being vocal supporters of Maduro’s fiery anti-imperialist slogans. A contradictory party that may have come to an end at Fort Tiuna, ironically, with the armed incursion from the United States just five weeks earlier.
Flores in the Arena
The horses used in team penning can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The investment required and restricted access to Fort Tiuna formed a necessary filter to ensure that the competition became a virtual who’s who of the revolutionary aristocracy.
In this discipline, unlike the local practice of bullfighting, the livestock—calves in this case—aren’t brought down but herded from the field to a pen, known as room penning. The riders, divided into teams of three, must then push the calves, which are agile and of similar weight and size, into that pen. The fastest team wins.
This spectacle captured the attention of Yoswal and Yosser Gavidia Flores, sons of Cilia Flores, formerly the First Lady or First Fighter, currently awaiting trial in a New York prison. Both young men are enthusiastic practitioners and promoters of extreme sports through their Team Furia, a conglomerate that combines commercial activities with sports sponsorships. In their business area, they finance team penning teams registered with Asowest, providing media coverage with teams of journalists and cameramen to report on events held at Fort Tiuna.
For their foray into team penning, the Gavidia Flores brothers—who recently have made public appearances—had a connector represented in Willmer José Goffredo Goffredo (previously, Willmer José Goffredo Piña; adopted by his uncle, José Miguel Goffredo García, who raised his nephew for several decades, as specified in the 2017 adoption decision reviewed for this work). Goffredo, an enthusiast of the sport and rider, is also the owner and representative of the football team La Cosa Nostra, as Armando.info revealed in a story from August 2025. The team is part of the Monumental League, a venture by businessman Vitto Recchimurzo Díaz, essentially a gathering of the boliburguesía indebted to the chavista state.
“Goffredo was the one who introduced them to the world of racehorses,” claims one of the consulted sources. Armando.info sent two interview requests to Goffredo via his company’s corporate email, Global Colors, C.A. (a textile company contracting with the Venezuelan state), but received no response.
Furthermore, the source expanded the participation of the Gavidia Flores beyond Yoswal and Yosser, including another brother, Walter Jacob, the eldest of Cilia Flores’s three children from her marriage to Walter Ramón Gavidia Rodríguez, a former deputy of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
The stables of the Fort Tiuna Equestrian School were remodeled in 2023 and reopened in 2024, with a new arena built to meet the requirements of western sports. The facility transitioned from a training center for military personnel to a cowboy-themed park for an elite connected to the former Venezuelan presidential family. “What they did was straightforward: just adapted the stables previously available at [Fort Tiuna] for this sport,” clarifies one source.
There are two adjacent arenas surrounded by stables and seating. Access to the field is through the Alcabala 3 of Fort Tiuna, located between the Las Gaviotas distributor of the Pan-American highway and the Valle-Coche highway. The new arena is situated on the northwest side of the area, nearly adjoining the highway. Just a few meters southeast lies the Army’s Equestrian School. Southeast from the team penning arena were the sites of U.S. attacks: the famed Casa de Pino, from which Delta Force extracted Maduro and Flores.
The boom of western sports among the nomenklatura began with Nicolás Maduro’s rise to power in 2013, following Hugo Chávez’s death. “Then [Cilia Flores’s children] arrived with all the toys. It’s not that they bought one horse and then another: they came with the best toys and the finest horses to the top clubs,” mentions a source, clarifying that at least a hundred horses are housed among Fort Tiuna, Club Izcaragua in eastern Caracas, and the Polo Club of San Antonio in the Mirandinos.
“When they took the jumping horses from Fort Tiuna, the Gavidia Flores took them. The stables that existed were for jumping, not team penning. But the environment was seen as propitious; they started to put them there, and the main horses they have are now there. The stables at Fort Tiuna were remodeled by the Flores… they are people with resources, money, and muscle, and they brought the best specimens,” they add.
However, Fort Tiuna was not the only place taken over by the Flores family for this high-end discipline; they also seized control of Asowest. Founded in 1997 and previously a solid institution, this association governed the hierarchies, structures, calendars, legality, and fund transparency for western events and celebrations, such as team penning, racing events, and barrel racing competitions.
While it represented a boom, the arrival of Cilia Flores’s children and the entire chavista elite into the sport led to a decline in competition rigor. “Some of the judges, who were federated, are now chosen arbitrarily. There’s neither camaraderie nor meritocracy in competition. As they have done with everything, chavismo took over even hobbies,” laments one person who spoke with Armando.info.
For this story, two interview requests were sent to Asowest’s executives via their institutional email address, but no responses were received.
What was once an association dependent on its members and affiliates now largely survives off the profits from a business culture linked to power. The association’s own website reveals those connections.
Taking the Helm
Since its founding in 1997, a person closely associated with the Gavidia Flores has been part of the association. In fact, he is presented as a co-founder. This individual is Juan Carlos López Tovar.
A contractor for the Venezuelan state in business with the state oil company Pdvsa, he has been a partner of Carlos Erick Malpica Flores, Cilia Flores’s nephew, who has been sanctioned twice by the United States. López Tovar was also married to Iriamni Malpica Flores, the first lady’s niece, who was sanctioned in December by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He was involved in business with Panamanian businessman Ramón Carretero Napolitano, also under U.S. sanctions, a regular contractor for Maduro and recently a victim of an airplane crash at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, from which he survived.
He states that he is an expert in “the tire sector,” in livestock, and in rural sports. Now, López Tovar is one of the prominent figures in Venezuela’s western movement, not just as a participant but as a director and co-founder of Asowest and as a sponsor of competitions.
The association’s website features him as one of the five main directors, a position below the National Executive Committee.
Juan Miguel López Tovar is also a director of Asowest representing Carabobo state. In addition to sharing this board with his brother, both are involved in companies that do business with the state.
For example, Juan Miguel López Tovar is a partner in Insala, C.A. and Redilama, C.A., import-export companies for various products and services, as per their legal business descriptions, alongside his brother, Juan Carlos.
Champions Without Delay
On December 19, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued sanctions involving several close family members of Cilia Flores for supporting Nicolás Maduro’s “dishonest narco-state.”
Among those sanctioned was Érica Patricia Malpica Hurtado, known in the western circle as “The Cowgirl.” Since her youth, Érica has sought to excel in western disciplines, and she has succeeded. Her name appears in various lists from Asowest. One of her most recent victories was the championship at the Kavac Cup in team penning, held at Fort Tiuna, which she won alongside her cousin Katherin Ramírez Malpica and Saray Quintero Uribe.
Érica has also teamed up with her younger brothers, Erik Mathias Malpica Velásquez and Carlos Erick Malpica Hurtado. The fraternal trio participated under the rather unimaginative name The Brothers in the second division of cattle herding at the Mega Válida XIX FISS in January 2025, which took place in Pueblo Nuevo, Táchira state.
During that same tournament, Érica’s name appeared on other cattle herding teams: La Panameña, El Safari, Los Chingones del Terreno, Team Safari, Team Dakota, and Las Bichotas (alongside Katherin Malpica Hurtado).
In October 2025, Carlos Erick Malpica Hurtado, Erik Mathias Malpica Velásquez, and Katherin Ramírez Malpica formed the winning team, named Team Susy, at the Bangente Cup of the Mega Válida Internacional in Barquisimeto.
None Caught by the Rope
On January 29, 2026, Donald Trump’s administration announced the reopening of Venezuelan airspace and the resumption of direct flights between the United States and Venezuela. However, prior to that date, amid sanctions and subsequent restrictions on air and maritime transport between the two nations, the horses used for team penning practices and competitions traveled from the U.S. to Venezuela via a route that circumvented the restrictions imposed by Washington.
The horse route from the U.S. began in Texas, continuing to Florida, then to Bogotá, and finally arriving in Caracas.
Two individuals were responsible for this logistics. One was Jesús Alejandro Cuevas Rangel, a regular participant in team penning events. In August 2025, for instance, he took part in numerous cattle herding teams at the Copa Proyecto Ubre, during the Fuerte Tiuna event. He was often the one traveling to acquire the quarter horses needed for these competitions.
The other key individual in these operations is Venezuelan Carlos Villalobos Vegas, who coordinates the logistics of horse transport from the U.S. through his company Maximum USA LLC.
A Venezuelan by origin, Villalobos Vegas states on his social media that he has over 20 years of experience in transporting animals. “We specialize in the ground and air transport of horses. We ensure your horse travels in first class,” he proudly claims, as a slogan. On these platforms, he openly stated that he transports horses between Venezuela and the U.S. “Yes, I am moving horses from Maiquetía to Miami with a technical stop in Bogotá for early December,” he responded to a user in the public comment section at the end of 2024.
“Carlos Villalobos Vegas is aware that the horse shipments are for the Flores. Before, when there were no sanctions, he was also linked with players in the western world, but not from the chavista elite, from whom he brought horses. Now, he imports the horses from the ones that are out-of-batch. The country situation changed and in the horse world only the group of enchufados remains,” states a source. The costs of these horses range between $200,000 and $500,000, with insemination costing about $5,000.
Armando.info sent several interview requests to Jesús Alejandro Cuevas Rangel and Carlos Villalobos Vegas but also received no response.
The practice of cattle herding wouldn’t be complete, as the name suggests, without the livestock. Unlike the horses, the calves are not housed at Fort Tiuna and are rented for the occasion.
These rentals are managed by at least two companies: Centro de Recría Medanito, located in Turmero, Aragua state, and Sombrerito Ranch GG, in El Cujisal, Yaracuy. Both companies received interview requests, but no responses were forthcoming.
“The cattle arrives the night before the competition, gets classified and divided into pens. They are assigned plastic or leather numbers on their backs, numbered zero to nine—three from each pen. They are sorted, the competition arrives and early in the morning the cattleman arrives, loads the calves, the packers, and takes them away,” explains one source.
Shoes and Plugs
While Team Furia regularly sponsors team penning, other private organizations, as well as owners associated with chavismo, pay for advertising space and sponsorships in the cattle herding events at Fort Tiuna.
This is not just a group of enthusiasts for a sport; it represents Venezuela during the years of chavismo-madurismo: the convergence between business and sports that entertains the powerful.
There are many examples that extend beyond the Flores clan. One active family is that of General Vladimir Padrino López, Minister of Defense for both Nicolás Maduro and now interim president, Delcy Rodríguez.
During the August 2025 event of Proyecto Ubre – named after an ambitious initiative for producing and marketing goat-derived products led by investors linked to former minister Wilmar Castro Soteldo—in Fort Tiuna, Mitchell Vladimir Padrino Betancourt, one of the minister’s sons, was part of 17 team penning teams. One of these, notably, sported a prescient name: The Invasion.
In several of these teams, Padrino Betancourt was accompanied by Alex Constantino Padrino Concha, a doctor and cattle trader, as well as the nephew of Padrino López, and Daniel Andrés Puglia Costas, the husband of Yarazetd Padrino Betancourt, daughter of the general. Puglia Costas made news in September 2025 when, due to his wedding, his payment account on Zelle was suspended, through which he and his fiancée received cash gifts.
Other business groups that owe their success to the regime have joined the team penning festivities, including Grupo Gorrín, owned by businessman Raúl Gorrín, owner of the 24-hour news channel, Globovisión. Gorrín was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2019 and is facing legal charges.
Purolomo, a food brand owned by the owners of the Fórum supermarket chain, which took over the former CLAP stores, previously owned by contractor Alex Saab, is also one of the event sponsors.
Jorge Silva Cardona, a former official of the Bolivarian National Guard and the National Integrated Customs and Tax Administration (Seniat), who is also an entrepreneur under the self-called Bolivarian Revolution, is also one of the economic pillars of the team penning events through his food company JHS.
Team Espartanos, the sports sponsorship club belonging to Alexander Granko Arteaga, director of special operations for the Military Counterintelligence General Directorate (Dgcim) and, in practice, the chief torturer of the Republic, is another investor in this sporting modality that is growing among a privileged group that shares an almost absolute passion for the most important military complex in Venezuela, recently breached by American soldiers. Indeed, something changed for Asowest since January 3: their website is now announcing a testing schedule of nine events until April 2026, and none of them will take place at Fort Tiuna.