Operation 14 July

[1] Organized by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, the mission failed to make contact with FARC guerrillas and eventually returned home.

Pulecio and her daughter, Astrid Betancourt, immediately came to Uribe's office where they met the contact, who told them to go to Leticia, Colombia on 5 July and wait for further instructions.

[3] Astrid contacted the French government on 8 July,[4] and Dominique de Villepin, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, charged senior advisor on Latin America and deputy chief of staff Pierre-Henri Guignard to plan a rescue mission.

[5] On 8 July, Pierre-Henri Guignard and an 11-person team of Direction Générale de la Securité Exterieure (DGSE) personnel boarded a C-130 Hercules transport in Évreux for the Brazilian city of Manaus, landing the next day.

A Catholic priest named Father Gonzalo had come along with the family to act as an intermediary and to bring them by riverboat to San Antonio de Ica, where FARC was to make contact.

[8] Soon after landing in Manaus, Brazilian federal police asked to perform a normal check of the aircraft, but were denied after the group claimed diplomatic immunity.

[9] Upon landing the team took a water taxi to the Flamingo Hotel, and Guignard subsequently went to find Father Pedro, a priest who was to help the rescue mission.

[1] On 11 July the French group in São Paulo de Olivença flew back to Manaus after no sign of Betancourt, only to be detained by Brazilian federal police upon arrival.