The Timaru Herald 9 May 2020
The former Green Beret behind a failed military incursion in Venezuela can add another infraction to his growing list of potential screw ups — cut and paste plagiarism. The website for Jordan Goudreau’s Silvercorp USA appears to have lifted entire passages from the website of the Department of Homeland Security as well as one run by a crisis management firm. There are also pages found on the website, without active hyperlinks, with wording nearly identical to online texts from inspirational speaker Tony Robbins, a more-established competitor in the private security industry and the fine print of online educational website MasterClass. Goudreau has claimed responsibility for a failed military incursion last week to capture socialist leader Nicolas Maduro that resulted in the detention in Venezuela of two of his former special forces colleagues. The Trump administration has denied any responsibility for the armed raid. Goudreau has said he was hired last year by opposition leader Juan Guaido, something the US-backed Venezuelan lawmaker has denied. An Associated Press investigation found that last year Goudreau helped train a team of Venezuelan military deserters in Colombia to carry out a raid. Goudreau’s apparent intellectual property theft was first detected by an anonymous social media sleuth who published his findings under the handle (at)Z3dster on Twitter.