CARACAS, Venezuela — An American citizen has been arrested by Venezuelan authorities who said Thursday that he had been taken into custody because he was involved in a plot to destabilize the country after the recent presidential election.

Interior Minister Miguel Rodríguez identified the man as Timothy Hallett, 35, and said he had been trained as a spy and was connected to what Mr. Rodríguez called right-wing groups seeking to provoke violence.

“The mission was to bring us to a civil war,” Mr. Rodríguez said, according to the government news agency, AVN.

Officials with the United States Embassy in Caracas said they could not discuss the case because of privacy issues.