CARACAS, Venezuela — Agents from the intelligence police on Thursday night raided the offices of the president of a major television network that opposes the government’s policies, marking an aggressive turn in President Hugo Chávez’s threat this month to take punitive action against one of his most vociferous critics in the media.

The raid was captured by the cameras of the Globovisión network, as well as those of state television crews accompanying the agents, as they forced their way into the property of Guillermo Zuloaga in an exclusive district here. Shoving broke out between the agents and a female lawyer for Mr. Zuloaga, who was not at the property.

The raid follows an investigation of Globovisión initiated this month at the behest of Mr. Chávez, opening the possibility of temporarily or permanently shutting the network down. Earlier this month, Mr. Chávez reacted angrily to Globovisión’s coverage of a mild earthquake here in which the network reported news of the event before state media did.

Wilmer Flores Trossel, the director of the intelligence police, told reporters during the raid that the reason for the operation was due to information regarding “an important set of automobiles encountered in a state of concealment.” Mr. Zuloaga operates a car dealership partly out of the residence.

Another unidentified government official who took part in the raid said it was carried out after the police received an anonymous tip Wednesday of irregularities related to the automobiles at Mr. Zuloaga’s property.

“They are trying to find something they can use to shut me up,” Mr. Zuloaga said Thursday night.

As news of the raid spread, Mr. Chávez took over the airwaves of private television networks, including Globovisión’s own signal, to broadcast the nationalization of several small iron and ceramics companies.

Tension has festered for some time between Mr. Chávez and Globovisión, a news network that is the only television network broadly available on open airwaves in Caracas and some cities, and on cable elsewhere, to offer explicitly negative coverage of the president’s policies.

Last year, for instance, supporters of Mr. Chávez accused Nelson Mezerhane, a partner in Globovisión, of taking part in a conspiracy to oust the president. But an investigation of the charges in the National Assembly, which is controlled by loyalists to Mr. Chávez, languished.

Other networks tamed their coverage of Mr. Chávez after a 2004 law was passed allowing officials to suspend or revoke broadcasts viewed as disrupting public order. Two years ago, the government opted not to renew the license of a critical network, RCTV, effectively pushing it off public airwaves to cable.

The confrontation with Globovisión has touched off a fierce debate within Mr. Chávez’s own political movement as fears intensify that the actions against the president’s opponents could easily widen to include those who try to criticize the Mr. Chávez from within.

“Those who applaud this eventual measure,” Vladimir Villegas, a former Venezuelan ambassador to Brazil under Mr. Chávez, wrote in a newspaper column, “could regret it sooner rather than later.”