A team of American journalists led by Univision's Jorge Ramos had their equipment and phones seized at Venezuela's presidential palace after Nicolas Maduro abruptly ended an interview.

Ramos is one of the most influential Spanish-speaking journalists in the U.S. He told The Associated Press on Monday night that Maduro cut short the interview after 17 minutes when Ramos showed him on his iPad footage shot a day earlier of young Venezuelans eating food scraps out of the back of a garbage truck.

The Univision team left after two hours without having their equipment returned.

Venezuela's government denies Ramos' account and accuses him of trying to stage an international incident after senior State Department officials and Sen. Marco Rubio relayed reports on social media of what they called Ramos' detention.