Special Action Forces
The Special Action Forces, also known by its Spanish abbreviation, FAES (Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales), are a command of the Venezuelan National Police created in 2016 by orders of President Nicolás Maduro. It is headquartered in Caracas, and has between 800 and 1,000 troops.
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They were created after the international community pressured Maduro to abandon People Liberation Operations (a campaign of police repression), so Maduro created the FAES to continue using these methods. In 2019, Maduro sent 700 FAES police to the border with Colombia to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid to Venezuela.
The FAES have been accused multiple times by international media of committing multiple human rights violations, and being singled out as a death squad that Maduro uses to kill opponents. 403 homicides perpetrated by the police in Caracas were attributed to the FAES.
Perhaps one of their most controversial acts was the La Vega raid, when on January 8, 2021, when the FAES together with the national police and the national guard took over the La Vega parish under the excuse of reducing criminality and began to arrest and execute various civilians, leaving 23 dead.
The retired Venezuelan Army General Carlos Peñaloza Zambrano called the FAES the "Venezuelan Gestapo."