MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US insists Maduro heads the Cartel de los Soles terrorist organization

This move follows criminal charges filed against Maduro and other Venezuelan officials during the previous Trump administration

The United States Government of President Donald Trump insisted Friday that Venezuela's leader Nicolás Maduro was the head of the “Cartel de los Soles,” which was designated a terrorist organization. In Washington's view, Maduro uses drug trafficking to “destabilize” the region.

The US State Department and Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) explicitly stated that the Cartel de los Soles, “run by dictator Nicolás Maduro,” included “other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals in the Maduro regime.”

The US claimed the Cartel de los Soles provides material support to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Tren de Aragua, both of which were also recently designated as “terrorist” organizations by the United States.

By adding the Cartel de los Soles to its list of terrorist organizations, the US aims to utilize “all resources at its disposal” to prevent Maduro from profiting from drug trafficking and “destabilizing the hemisphere.”

This move follows criminal charges filed against Maduro and other Venezuelan officials during the previous Trump administration (2017-2021) for drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism.”

Maduro was said to be leading a corrupt government network that facilitated the import of tons of cocaine into the US, allegedly negotiating shipments from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and coordinating drug trafficking through other countries.

Venezuela's Bolivarian administration has consistently rejected these accusations, labeling them as interventionist. Foreign Minister Yvan Gil has also denied the existence of the Tren de Aragua, calling it “media fiction.”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that “Today's action further exposes the illegitimate Maduro regime's facilitation of narco-terrorism through terrorist groups.”