January 14, 2026 
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Venezuela has recently freed Argentine-Israeli political prisoner Yaakov Harari. The 72-year-old man was arrested in October 2024 while trying to cross the border into Colombia. He was accompanied by a former colleague to buy agricultural supplies.
His full name is Yaakov Eliahu Harari, and he was detained by Venezuela’s security forces on October 10, 2024, at the Puente Internacional José Antonio Páez — also called the “puente de lata” — which crosses the Arauca River into Colombia.
Harari was traveling with Douglas Javier Ochoa Rodríguez, a 44-year-old Venezuelan farmer from the state of Lara and a former employee of his, with whom he had worked in Colombia. They planned to purchase farming inputs to restart agricultural work on a parcel Harari had bought in Colombia.
When they tried to cross the approximately 200-meter-long international crossing at El Amparo, they were stopped by Venezuela’s General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence and taken to Caracas. From there they lost all communication with their families.
Harari and his companion were then incarcerated in El Rodeo I Prison, one of Venezuela’s most dangerous prisons, located in the state of Miranda near Caracas. They spent roughly 450 days in captivity. Authorities accused them of “destabilizing activities.”
Harari was finally released from prison and is now free, as part of a broader release of political prisoners.
