Talk about living the dream. Eric Arthur was 62 years old, retired, financially secure and, for the past four years, sailing carefree around the Mediterranean on his catamaran.
In December, the lifelong sailor who grew up in Los Angeles embarked on what became his greatest adventure. It began with a crossing of the Atlantic. He had bought his 48-foot catamaran in Greece and gave it his own nickname, the Tambo, a mashup of the 1980s movie characters the Terminator and Rambo.
Arthur, described by friends as an affable thrill-seeker, completed his trans-Atlantic voyage and celebrated the New Year’s holiday in Barbados. Then he set off for the balmy weather and stunning beaches of Venezuela—in his mind, maybe an appealing place to settle down.
Years of smooth sailing around southern Europe and North Africa had blinded him to the risks. “I didn’t realize it was that bad,” Arthur said, not giving thought about disembarking into the regime of Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled Venezuela with an iron grip for 12 years.
Venezuela’s coast guard stopped Arthur in Venezuelan waters, and 12 officers boarded his vessel with drug-sniffing dogs, he said. Later in the day, they told him to turn back, rejecting his pleas to rest for the night. Exhausted, Arthur later fell asleep at the wheel.
At about 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, his vessel slammed into rocks and sank within minutes. Arthur boarded a life raft with a radio, fresh water and a laptop, cast adrift in the vastness, far from land. He huddled under the raft’s orange tarp and radioed SOS messages every hour.
After three days, Arthur was rescued by fishermen who picked up his distress calls. The men brought him to a Venezuelan military base on a remote island. Naval officers lent him a mattress for his first night’s sleep.
The next morning, officers filmed Arthur having breakfast and walking around. Later, they asked him to read a statement to the camera, thanking Maduro for rescuing him.
Arthur refused. “They wanted to do propaganda. They wanted me to say how great the president was,” he said.
From the naval outpost, Arthur said he was taken on a 10-hour boat ride to Margarita Island, where he was held at the residence of a military commander. In the few WhatsApp messages he was permitted to send, Arthur told friends about his predicament. “I have been under coast guard watch, house arrest,” he wrote. “Want to make sure I can leave of my own free will.”
Arthur shared a room with an officer who kept a close watch on him. Military officials told Arthur he would be freed, that he could buy a plane ticket to Trinidad and Tobago.
The offer didn’t stand. He was instead moved to a prison in Caracas where other foreigners, including Americans, were held. On arrival, guards took away his laptop, phone and watch, cutting him off from the outside world.
Shackled
Inside the prison, Arthur said he was forced to sit in a chair for 14 hours a day. He wasn’t permitted to talk, stand or get much sleep. Lights were always on, and a radio blasted loud music 24 hours a day—hip-hop, Latin, pop and grunge.
Guards pushed him around when they ushered him from room to room, aggravating Arthur’s chronic blood pressure and back trouble. Air conditioning and cold showers made him ill—dizzy, weak, shivering—and he was given intravenous fluids. The food, mostly bread, kept him constipated for days, he said.
When Arthur complained in his broken Spanish, guards shackled his wrists and ankles. “You can’t take a shower,” Arthur said, “you have no way to eat” or use a toilet.
Again and again, guards interrogated Arthur about the condom and lubricant manufacturing business he had sold before retiring, seeming to try to catch him in a lie. They accused him of being a spy. “They were just trying to wear you down so that when they interviewed you, you’d agree to whatever they’re saying,” he said.
In Washington, President Trump embarked on his second term, racing to make good on campaign promises, including the swift deportation of illegal immigrants. Federal officers rounded up scores of Venezuelan nationals who were living without permission in the U.S.
The problem was that Maduro wouldn’t take them back.
On Jan. 31, White House Special Envoy Richard Grenell was sent to Caracas. Critics of Trump’s outreach said the U.S. envoy’s visit conferred a sense of legitimacy to a leader accused of stealing last year’s election. Maduro has denied any wrongdoing.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell shake hands at the Miraflores Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela January 31, 2025. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS
Grenell’s trip signaled that Washington was open to easing up on a yearslong pressure campaign against the Maduro regime. The U.S. asked Venezuela to accept flights ferrying deportees, as well as free some Americans who had been locked up in recent months.
Many of the American men imprisoned in Venezuela had come to meet partners or women they knew only from dating sites. They were charged with terrorism, espionage or plotting to assassinate Maduro. All of them had been arrested between September and January, a period when U.S.-Venezuela relations had frayed. The regime is alleged to have taken the hostages to try to coerce the U.S. to end its opposition, which the government has denied.
Maduro had agreed to prisoner swaps in 2022 and 2023, which included the release of 16 Americans and the return of Malaysian businessman Leonard Francis, known as “Fat Leonard,” who had escaped U.S. custody. In exchange, Maduro received two nephews serving drug sentences in the U.S., as well as his top financier, Alex Saab , who was facing trial in Miami on money-laundering charges.
An officer from the British embassy in Caracas visited Arthur at the prison and told him that the U.S. and Venezuela were in negotiations over the release of Americans.
Arthur learned nothing more about it until later.
Old tricks
Venezuela agreed to accept deportees from the U.S. and to turn over six of the more than a dozen Americans they held.
The Maduro regime hadn’t publicly acknowledged the detention of Arthur, who wasn’t yet charged with a crime or given access to a lawyer. That left him out of any deal.
Then his luck turned.
At the last minute, two of the prisoners Venezuela had selected for release refused to leave their cells, thinking the guards were replaying a cruel trick they had pulled before, lying about a surprise release. The Americans’ refusal opened two slots, Grenell said.
Arthur and another American were unexpectedly pulled from their cells. Arthur was ordered to record a video saying the guards treated him well. He also had to promise that he wouldn’t sue the regime.
He was handcuffed, blindfolded and driven in a car to what looked like an abandoned airfield. “I thought they were going to kill me,” Arthur said.
Grenell greeted him on the runway. Arthur hugged him and thanked God before they boarded the U.S. Air Force jet with the other freed Americans and took off for Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Arthur said he was in shock and his body hurt. Yet he still tried to enjoy the onboard meal of chicken cordon bleu and mashed potatoes.
State Department officials asked the freed men whether they knew anything about the other Americans left behind. Some of the men shared a brief call with Trump.
After arriving in the U.S., the six men were dropped off at a Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Va. They signed an IOU pledging to reimburse the U.S. for the rooms.
They all left for home the following day.
“I’m still trying to figure out if this whole thing was real,” Arthur said. He spoke by phone as he rummaged through his storage unit in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., trying to patch his life back together after three weeks in brutal detention and come to terms with the loss of his boat, a nest egg from a lifetime in business.
“I’m broke now. Got to start all over,” Arthur said. “It was a horrible experience, but I have to say I feel blessed. I can’t believe it. I could still be there.”
Venezuela’s Attorney General and its Information Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Arthur and the other men weren’t designated by the State Department as “wrongfully detained,” making them ineligible for medical treatment and psychological counseling usually provided by the U.S. for released hostages. The State Department said only that the U.S. was committed to freeing Americans unjustly held abroad.
“Noises just screw with me right now,” Arthur said. “I’m scared of being pulled over by a cop. I may start crying.”
After four years at sea and three weeks in Venezuelan detention, Arthur says he plans to spend the next couple of months with friends and family. His 87-year-old father is urging Arthur to move in with him in Los Angeles.
“I don’t know if I ever want to leave the country again,” Arthur said. “I’m 62. I do not like looking at the abyss.”
Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com
