The US special forces veteran who spirited Nobel laureate María Corina Machado out of Venezuela has begged her not to return to the country, after a perilous rescue mission that lasted nearly 16 hours and was carried out largely in the middle of the night through rough waters.

Florida-based Grey Bull Rescue Foundation leader said his group was behind the operation, saying Machado is “overwhelmingly the highest-profile person we’ve rescued.”

María Corina Machado reappeared on the global stage as the Trump administration ramped up its pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro.

The 58-year-old engineer had secretly left Venezuela for Norway in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country.

The daughter of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ana Corina Sosa, who will accept the award on behalf of her mother, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, arrives for the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony, in Oslo, Norway, Wednesday.

María Corina Machado said in Oslo, where she collected the award, that President Donald Trump's "decisive" actions had made the Venezuelan regime "weaker than ever."

A private US rescue firm says it ran a covert land–sea–air extraction as Maduro’s government tightened pressure on the opposition.

A Florida-based nonprofit organization was tasked with the mission to take opposition leader María Corina Machado from Venezuela to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.