Implicated in a 1919 conspiracy to overthrow President Gómez, he spent four years participating in guerrilla warfare from the mountains of his native Falcón State.

[1] In 1929, he led the taking of Fort Amsterdam in Curaçao and the kidnapping of the Dutch governor, Leonard Albert Fruytier [nl], in another failed attempt to overthrow Gómez involving 250 men with the support of Venezuelan communists,[1] including Gustavo Machado Morales and Miguel Otero Silva.

[2] The revolutionaries landed at La Vela de Coro (Falcón State), but were defeated by Gómez forces led by General Leon Jurado and the raid ended in failure.

In October 1931, along with 137 Mexican braceros and eight Venezuelans, he landed at Puerto Gutiérrez (Falcón State) and captured the city of Capatárida before being defeated once more by the troops of general Leon Jurado, after which he fled the country again.

He opposed the 1945 Venezuelan coup d'état and after seeking asylum in the Haitian embassy, went into exile in Barranquilla and Santo Domingo, where he sought the help of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in planning another invasion of Venezuela.