As the first light of Saturday morning illuminated the vibrant hills surrounding Caracas, a startling piece of news rapidly circulated: Nicolas Maduro, the de facto leader of Venezuela, had been apprehended by the United States and swiftly transported to New York City.

In response, the citizens, worn down by years of oppression, dutifully filled the streets, clutching flags and lifting portraits of the authoritarian leader.

Participation was hardly optional. Any failure to display adequate revolutionary zeal risked being reported by a vast network of informants, trained by Venezuela’s Cuban allies, to the authorities.

Among those addressing the crowd was Diosdado Cabello, the feared interior minister, known for his control over motorcycle gangs hunting for ‘traitors.’ He condemned ‘imperialism’ while donning a baseball cap emblazoned with the slogan: ‘To doubt is treason.’

Two days later in the chilly air of New York City, a similar scene unfolded at dawn.

Outside a courthouse in lower Manhattan, a gathering assembled to protest Maduro’s appearance before a judge, clashing vocally with Venezuelans who had come to celebrate the downfall of a reviled leader.

‘I do support Maduro,’ said one man in sunglasses, who gave his name as Kylian A. ‘I support someone who is able to advocate for the needs of his people and who will stand ten toes down with that.’

As in Caracas, the passionate protesters appeared sincere. But as in Caracas, the Manhattan demonstration was anything but.

The New York crowd was called to action by groups funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American Marxist millionaire who made his fortune in tech and is now devoted to directing ‘anti-imperialist’ causes.

‘If you’re showing up [at these protests] saying you’re part of some grassroots organization: no, you’re not,’ Joel Finkelstein, a Princeton University researcher who founded the Network Contagion Research Institute think tank to analyze social movements, told the Daily Mail.

Finkelstein calculates that Singham has poured more than $100 million into a series of ‘movements’ such as the People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition, BreakThrough Media television network, and the Massachusetts-based think tank Tricontinental, alongside funding several pro-Palestine groups. 

‘You’re not part of a grassroots organization. You’re part of an information operation that’s been sold to you that way. And you have a right to know that – because then you have a choice to make.’

Some of these Singham-linked organizations propelling the ‘Hands Off Venezuela’ protests were also a driving force behind pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the wake of the Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel. 

One the day of the attack, The People’s Forum called for an end to ‘US aid to the Zionist occupation’ and did not condemn the atrocities. Singham-linked groups then co-hosted an event on October 8 in New York City. It’s partcipants echoed pro-Hamas slogans.

Now The People’s Forum is playing a high-profile role in the demonstrations in the wake of the deadly shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis this week.

The group is explicitly linking the Minneapolis incident and Maduro’s capture, calling for protests in New York City on Sunday, January 11.

‘From Minneapolis to Caracas, from Chicago to NYC the violence of the ruling class knows no borders… ICE raids & murders, repression, bombings, and sanctions are part of the same project: turning our lives into profit and our communities into targets. We refuse to sit idly by, now is our time to fight back!’ The People’s Forum tweeted on X on Saturday.

Finkelstein told Daily Mail that Americans should pay close attention to the man whose money is fueling this group and others. 

Singham, a 71-year-old Connecticut-born businessman, sold his ThoughtWorks software company in 2017 for $758 million, and then decamped to China with his wife Jodie Evans, founder of the feminist anti-war group Code Pink.

In August 2023, the New York Times published a 3,500-word expose of Singham’s activities in Shanghai, claiming that he was behind ‘a global web of Chinese propaganda’ and noting his repeated invitations to high-level events held by Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party.

The news outlet reported that Singham shares office space in Shanghai with a company that aims to educate foreigners about ‘the miracles that China has created on the world stage.’

Shortly after the article was published, Marco Rubio, then vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging an investigation into Singham’s ties to China’s ruling party.

Congress has been probing the matter ever since, with the House of Representatives Oversight committee now taking the lead.

In September, James Comer, chair of the committee, wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asking that he examine whether Singham should be cited under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) for working on behalf of China, and potentially have his US assets frozen.

‘These reports suggest that Mr Singham may have acted as an agent for the CCP,’ Comer said in the letter to Bessent.

‘Under General Secretary Xi, the CCP is known for its “Strategy of Sowing Discord,” which ‘refers to efforts to make internal disputes amongst the enemy so deep that they become distracted from conflict.

‘If Mr Singham is carrying out this strategy on behalf of the CCP, he may have an unfulfilled FARA registration obligation.’

Singham told the New York Times in 2023 that he was simply acting to further his own political persuasions, rejecting that Beijing had any sway over his decisions.

‘I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives,’ he wrote in an email to the paper. ‘I am solely guided by my beliefs, which are my long-held personal views.’

Those views include praising the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, as a ‘phenomenally democratic place.’

Jason Curtis Anderson, a political consultant, said that the groups funded by Singham were designed ‘to turn us against ourselves’.

He told the Daily Mail that the public had a ‘romanticized’ view of protest movements, harking back to the 1960s, which bears little resemblance to the modern operations unfurling across America.

‘Today, the permanent protest movement is much, much different. One, it is supercharged by large-scale progressive foundations with billions of dollars. And two, it is completely infested with foreign influence.

Anderson added: ‘I am all for freedom of speech and civil discourse when it comes to us talking to us.

Links between Singham-backed groups and the Maduro regime are strong.

Manolo De Los Santos, the Dominican Republic-born, Cuban-trained head of the People’s Forum, has long been an apologist for the widely hated Venezuelan despot. In November 2021, he posted a photograph of himself on X, grinning beside Maduro in Caracas.

He and Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental, People’s Forum sister organization, had been touring Venezuela together on a regime-controlled propaganda jaunt.

Prashad even posted an image of Maduro showing them around, captioned: ‘When you go for a drive with @NicolasMaduro, the president says – I’m a bus driver and a communist – so he gets behind the wheel to drive around Caracas.’

De Los Santos returned to Caracas in April 2022 and again in March 2023, speaking at a conference alongside former foreign minister Jorge Arreaza.

In April 2024, he attended a conference of the left-wing ALBA alliance of nations in the Venezuelan capital, with Maduro making a personal shout-out to the activist, describing him as the leader of a social movement and his ‘companero.’

Why would Singham and his Chinese associates want to foster pro-Maduro protests in the United States?

For oil and for ideology, says Finkelstein.

‘There’s a lot of shared ideological embeddings: it converges very easily on anti-hierarchical, anti-US sentiment and the anti-war movement,’ he said.

‘Furthermore, when you look at China’s resource portfolio, the loss of Venezuela is as significant as would be the loss of Iran: significant for one of the most energy-hungry economies in the entire world. It’ll be very hard to substitute that.

‘The result is that these assets, like the Singham network, then lend themselves to this obvious need to exert pressure. They can’t do it militarily but they can definitely do it with an information war, on the payroll of the United States’ enemies.’

Finkelstein described the ‘Hands Off Venezuela’ protesters as ‘well-meaning citizens’ who were unaware that they were being used.

Veteran investigative journalist Asra Nomani detailed in a Fox News report how the Singham-linked groups coordinated their actions in the hours after Maduro’s arrest, sending out a series of appeals to their followers to mobilize.

Nomani wrote that the coordinators were ‘moving with the speed and discipline of an organized military operation’. She went on to add that they ‘will likely send foot soldiers into the streets to support Maduro and his wife during any trials they face, not just as an expression of protest but as a continued campaign of information warfare on the domestic front.’

One of Singham’s groups, ANSWER Coalition, forcefully pushed back on Nomani’s reporting, declaring that ‘organizing against a war is not a crime.’

‘There is nothing suspicious about people who have committed themselves to the war against empire (for years or decades of their lives) to decide they need to work through the night when a history-altering act of aggression takes place,’ the coalition said on social media.

Supporters and beneficiaries of Singham may claim that there is nothing wrong with him spending his money – in the same manner as billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch once did – to advance any political cause he believes in, but Finkelstein and others say such an interpretation is naive.

Jennifer Baker, a former FBI agent now researching extremism at George Washington University, published a report into Singham’s activities in June 2025 concluding that ‘some forms of activism, while appearing organic, are enhanced by external influence campaigns that serve the geopolitical interests of foreign powers.’

‘Through figures like Neville Roy Singham and aligned nonprofits such as the People’s Forum and ANSWER Coalition, the CCP has cultivated a network capable of organizing mass protests, producing compelling media, and disseminating anti-U.S. and anti-Israel narratives under the guise of grassroots resistance,’ she wrote.

Finkelstein added that Singham had not responded to repeated requests to cooperate with Congressional investigations and to provide documents and information about his funding of the organizations.

‘If he really has nothing to hide, and he really is who he says he is, why not tell them his story?

‘There’s inexplicable levels of coordination between hostile regimes like China and not-for-profit organizations in the United States, seeking to undermine democracy. And that’s really troubling.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Singham, through People’s Forum and his associated groups. None of the organizations responded to requests for comment.