WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has formally designated Venezuela’s Cartel de Los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, ramping up an ongoing pressure campaign on the South American country.
Rubio filed for the terrorism designation on Nov. 16, and the Federal Register posted the designation notice on Nov. 24.
Named after the sun insignias worn on the epaulettes of Venezuelan military generals, Cartel de Los Soles—or Cartel of the Suns—is an alleged criminal enterprise that the United States believes is grafted into the Venezuelan regime, up to and including Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The designation comes as the U.S. military has massed forces in the Caribbean Sea since August and has conducted numerous lethal strikes on alleged drug vessels transiting the waterways near Latin America since September.
Throughout this ongoing pressure campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly said Maduro is head of an extensive drug trafficking network—an allegation the Venezuelan leader denies.
Rubio reprised the drug trafficking accusation against Maduro in a Nov. 16 statement announcing plans to label Cartel de Los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
“Based in Venezuela, the Cartel de los Soles is headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary,” Rubio wrote.
“Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela’s legitimate government. Cartel de los Soles by and with other designated FTOs including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe.”
What Is the Cartel de Los Soles?
Cartel de Los Soles is the 14th Latin America-based criminal enterprise to be designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since the beginning of Trump’s second presidential term.
“Venezuela categorically, firmly, and absolutely rejects the new and ridiculous fabrication by the Secretary of State of the United States of North America, Marco Rubio, which designates the nonexistent Cartel de Los Soles as a terrorist organization,” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto said in a social media post on Nov. 24.
The label “Cartel de Los Soles” emerged within Venezuelan society in the early 1990s to describe corruption within the Venezuelan government. Concerns initially centered around Venezuelan military units stationed on the country’s border taking payoffs to allow cocaine from neighboring Colombia to flow into the country.
Corruption concerns continued under the late President Hugo Chávez and then under Maduro. In turn, the use of the “Cartel de Los Soles” label expanded to a growing set of Venezuelan government officials.
In November 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas—both later identified as nephews of Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores—on charges of conspiring to import roughly a ton of cocaine into the United States.
In March 2020, the Department of Justice announced charges against Maduro and 14 other current and former Venezuelan military officers and government officials, and set a $15 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.
The indictment against Maduro noted the prior case against Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas.
Maduro’s indictment states that Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas spoke to confidential sources working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, during which they “explained that they were at ‘war’ with the United States” and “described the Cartel de Los Soles.”
The indictment states that Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas also said they were engaging in drug trafficking efforts in order to raise about $20 million in proceeds to help fund the Venezuelan first lady’s 2015 campaign for the Venezuelan National Assembly.
In January, during the final days of President Joe Biden’s term, the Department of Justice raised the reward for Maduro’s arrest to $25 million. The Department of Justice doubled the reward to $50 million in August.
Terror Designation Expands Options: Hegseth
Designating Cartel de Los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization could expand the authorities at the U.S. government’s disposal to sanction Venezuelan officials and freeze their assets. The move may also serve as a preview to a more direct military confrontation between the United States and Venezuela.
The United States has already applied a variety of sanctions against Venezuelan officials and entities over the past two decades. More recent U.S. sanctions have targeted Maduro, his family members, and other top government officials, such as Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.
In July, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Cartel de Los Soles as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity, expanding the economic pressure and increasing the civil and criminal liability for those who continue to transact with the cartel and its alleged leaders.
The latest terrorism designation may also serve as a preview to a more direct military confrontation between the United States and Venezuela.
Trump suggested on Oct. 15 that after initial success with U.S. strikes on alleged drug traffickers at sea, he was considering strikes on land-based targets. That same day, he announced that he had authorized the CIA to conduct new covert actions inside Venezuela.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the terrorism designation against Cartel de Los Soles would provide “a whole bunch of new options” for countering drug trafficking in the region.
“[The terror designation] gives more tools to our [War] Department to give options to [Trump] to ultimately say ‘our hemisphere will not be controlled by narco-terrorists, it will not be controlled by cartels, [and] it will not be controlled by what illegitimate regimes try to push toward the American people,'” Hegseth said.
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