CIA deputy director credits cyber operations for the picture that found Maduro
Michael Ellis told a Washington conference that cyber operations built the intelligence picture behind January's capture of Maduro, without describing the collection or how the agency confirmed the location before special forces launched.
The Watch · Security desk
What happened
- CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis told the Billington Cybersecurity Conference on Tuesday that Operation Absolute Resolve was only made possible by a flawless intelligence picture built on cyber operations.
- He said that picture let U.S. forces identify Nicolas Maduro's location and apprehend him within four minutes of landing on the ground.
- Ellis gave no detail on methods, systems or sources, and did not say how the agency established the location or how it confirmed the information before the mission.
- He said the cyber center's standalone mission center status smooths out reporting chains and lets the agency align resources behind the cyber mission.
- Ellis said AI brings cyber operations speed and scale that would be unimaginable without the tools, and that he expects it to change every aspect of intelligence work.
Why it matters
- What doesn't add up contradiction Trump and other accounts blamed the operation's power outages on a cyberattack, while experts told CyberScoop the physical attacks alone could explain them, leaving the one publicly visible cyber element of the operation unresolved.
- What it limits constraint Without methods or a confirmation chain on the record, no one outside the agency can weigh whether cyber access located Maduro or only corroborated what human sources and imagery already had.
- What it sets up precedent A deputy director naming a normally closed cyber center as the enabler of a capture operation makes public credit-taking part of how intelligence reorganizations get defended.
- Who's exposed exposure The attribution sits on the record while a narcoterrorism prosecution of Maduro and his wife runs and the defense argues immunity, moving the provenance of targeting intelligence closer to a courtroom.
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A picture built on cyber operations can mean access to a phone the target carried, access to the networks of the people guarding him, or collection that did no more than corroborate a location human sources and imagery had already reported. Which of those happened stayed inside the building [10]. The four minutes Ellis cited covers only the ground assault; the collection process falls outside that window [2], and neither account gives the age of the location data at the moment the force launched [10].
The organizational chronology is checkable. The Record reports that Director John Ratcliffe promoted the longstanding Center for Cyber Intelligence to its own mission center late last year [3], and that U.S. forces took Maduro and his wife from a bunker in Caracas in January [12]. The reorganization came first, by a few months at most [19], which makes Absolute Resolve the retrospective case for a decision already taken. Ellis's argument is that cyber work belongs inside the structure used to plan collection and field missions instead of sitting beside it as a technical service [11].
The acquisition figures are the only numbers in the speech that can be checked against each other. Ellis said the CIA used to take an average of two to three years to bring new technology into use [5] and now works to a six-month target, with more than 400 purchases completed inside it [6]. That is a four- to sixfold compression of the cycle [18]. What was bought, neither report says [9]. The agency also created a Directorate of Mission Systems whose stated purpose is delivering technology to the workforce rapidly [17].
On AI, Ellis said tasks that once took hundreds of hours now take hours [8], that a human stays in the information loop, and that the agency is developing several approaches rather than locking itself to one model or vendor [15]. He said earlier this year that the CIA had produced a fully AI-generated intelligence report [16]. The Record calls Tuesday's remarks the most public acknowledgement so far of the role digital resources played in the operation, in a mission area the agency normally keeps closed [13].
What the record now holds is a deputy director's attribution of a targeting success to the mission center whose creation he is defending; the collection method remains known only to the agency itself.
What to watch
- Whether any filing in the narcoterrorism case against Maduro and his wife forces the government to describe the provenance of the targeting intelligence.
- Whether a U.S. official attributes the Venezuelan power outages to a specific cyber operation on the record, or the physical-attack explanation stands.
- Whether the CIA says anything further about the six-month acquisition target beyond the 400-purchase count, including what those purchases were.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption25
- Hype gap+45
- Incentives70
- Confidence55
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said Tuesday at the Billington Cybersecurity Conference that Operation Absolute Resolve "was only made possible by a flawless intelligence picture, and that flawless intelligence picture was built on cyber operations enabled by our [Center of Cyber Intelligence] team."
- [2]
Ellis said the intelligence enabled U.S. forces "to identify the location of Nicolas Maduro and apprehend him within four minutes of landing on the ground."
- [3]
Director John Ratcliffe elevated the CIA's longstanding Center for Cyber Intelligence into its own mission center late last year.
- [4]
Ellis said the promotion "allowed us to both focus priority on the cyber mission as well as to better align resources around that mission," and that standalone mission center status "smooths out reporting chains, helps us move more agilely" and helps align resources so cyber operations can be brought to bear on hard intelligence problems.
- [5]
Ellis said the CIA previously took an average of two to three years to bring new technology into use, and that "waiting two or three years is simply too long."
- [6]
Ellis said the agency has set a six-month acquisition target and completed more than 400 purchases within that period.
- [7]
Ellis said that in cyber operations AI "brings speed and scale that would be unimaginable without these AI tools," and that he and Ratcliffe "fully expect that AI will permeate how the CIA is doing this work and it will change every aspect of intelligence."
- [8]
Ellis said AI can reduce tasks that once required hundreds of hours of work to hours.
- [9]
Neither account of Ellis's remarks describes what the more than 400 purchases made under the six-month target were for.
- [10]
Ellis provided no details about the methods, systems or sources involved, and did not explain how cyber intelligence established Maduro's location or how the agency confirmed the information before the mission.
- [11]
Ellis said the agency's role in Operation Absolute Resolve is an example of how the CIA has moved to put cyber operations at the center of intelligence collection and field missions rather than treat them as a separate technical service, and that the reorganization needed to be mission-based.
- [12]
In Operation Absolute Resolve the U.S. took Maduro and his wife from their bunker in the capital Caracas in January, earlier this year.
- [13]
The Record described Ellis's comments as the most public acknowledgement to date of the role digital resources played in the operation, and as a rare public recognition of CIA cyber activities, which are traditionally among the agency's most closely held secrets.
- [14]
The U.S. has unsealed narcoterrorism charges against Maduro and his wife, which they are seeking to dismiss under immunity claims.
- [15]
Ellis said the agency would have appropriate safeguards in place, including keeping a human in the information loop and developing a variety of different approaches so it is not locked into one particular model or vendor.
- [16]
Ellis said earlier this year that the agency had produced a fully AI-generated intelligence report.
- [17]
The CIA created a Directorate of Mission Systems to speed the delivery of technology across the agency, which Ellis said exists "to deliver tech to our workforce to enable mission rapidly and efficiently."
- [18]
Moving from a two-to-three-year average to a six-month target is a four- to sixfold compression of the acquisition cycle.
- [19]
The elevation of the Center for Cyber Intelligence to a mission center preceded Operation Absolute Resolve by a few months at most.
- [20]
Reports from the operation, including statements made by President Donald Trump, stated that power outages during the operation were the result of a cyberattack.
- [21]
Experts told CyberScoop after the operation that cyber operations may have been involved, but that the visible physical attacks which were also part of the operation could plausibly explain the outages on their own.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- cyberscoop.comCIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates
1 article · September 8, 2026
- therecord.mediaCIA official touts agency’s Cyber Mission Center in capture of Venezuela’s Maduro
1 article · September 8, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- AI in intelligence
- Government technology acquisition
- Intelligence Cyber Operations
Entities
- CIA Directorate of Mission Systems
- Billington CyberSecurity Summit
- Operation Absolute Resolve
- Central Intelligence Agency
- CIA Center for Cyber Intelligence
- Nicolas Maduro