As the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, experts and former government officials have expressed concern about the country’s move to designate the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization.
They argue that the cartel is not a formally organized cartel like those in Colombia or Mexico, and that while there is government involvement in the drug trade, it is a stretch to think that Maduro is leading the cartel.
They suggested that the designation would give the regime legitimacy to take military action against the Venezuelan government.
U.S. President Donald Trump said as much on Sunday, telling reporters that the designation could allow the U.S. military to target Maduro’s assets and infrastructure inside Venezuela.
CNN has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Cartel de los Soles, which means Cartel of the Sun in English, is used to describe a decentralized network of Venezuelan groups within the military associated with drug trafficking, experts say.
However, some say that given their lack of hierarchy and structure, they cannot be compared to traditional cartels, which are designated as terrorist groups by the United States, and others suggest that they do not technically exist in the traditional sense.
“They’re labeling things as terrorist organizations that aren’t terrorist organizations,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who specializes in war powers issues.
Another former U.S. government official said Cartel de los Soles was “a term coined to describe an ad hoc group of Venezuelan officials involved in drug trafficking through Venezuela. There is no traditional cartel hierarchy or command-and-control structure.”
The official said the Trump administration’s claims are based on “bad intelligence” likely from the Defense Intelligence Agency or the Drug Enforcement Agency, do not stand up to scrutiny from the larger intelligence community, or are “purely political.”
CNN has reached out to the DIA and DEA for comment.
The name emerged in the 1990s after Venezuelan generals and commanders who wore the sun insignia on their epaulettes were investigated for drug trafficking and related crimes, according to think tank Insight Crime.
According to a recent report from InsightCrime, the name became popular and frequently used, especially since the mid-2000s, when several members of various branches of the military took on a more active role in drug trafficking.
Jeremy McDermott, co-founder and co-director of Insight Crime, told CNN that the so-called cartels are “not traditional vertical drug trafficking organizations. At least according to Insight Crime, they are a series of normally disconnected cells embedded within the Venezuelan military.”
According to the State Department, the Cartel de los Soles, along with Venezuela’s Torren de Aragua criminal organization and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, is responsible for drug trafficking to the United States and Europe.
Phil Ganson, a researcher at the Caracas-based International Crisis Group, previously told CNN: “The Cartel de los Soles itself does not exist. It is a journalistic term coined to refer to the involvement of Venezuelan authorities in drug trafficking.”
This does not mean that there are no military or government officials involved in drug trafficking. “The cartels are here too. There are also Colombians and Mexicans. Drugs are being transported through the Orinoco River, by air through secret airstrips and by planes from Apure to Central America. All this would not be possible without direct involvement from above,” the expert said.
For Ganzón, Maduro’s role is reminiscent of that of former Panama president Manuel Noriega, who was sentenced to decades in prison in various jurisdictions in 1992 for his involvement with the Medellin cartel. Although not a direct member of the Medellin cartel, he was still an outside partner who profited from drug trafficking routes under his protection.
Venezuela’s president has always denied any personal involvement in drug trafficking, and his government has repeatedly denied the existence of the alleged cartels.
“Suddenly they (the United States) dusted off something called the Cartel de los Soles, which they could never prove because it doesn’t exist. This is a story of imperialism,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said a few days ago.
CNN has reached out to Venezuela’s attorney general’s office for comment.
The Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation is one of the most serious counterterrorism designations by the State Department. It is illegal for U.S. persons to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and its representatives or members are prohibited from entering the United States.
Beyond that, the move could allow the U.S. military to target President Maduro’s assets and infrastructure inside Venezuela, as President Trump has suggested.
While the United States has traditionally treated counternarcotics operations as a law enforcement issue, President Trump has sought to increasingly militarize the effort, drawing on traditional counterterrorism tools and authorities, Finucane said, but this is actually a smokescreen for the operation’s true purpose: to oust President Maduro.
“The worrying aspect of this move is that it could be a precursor to military action against the Venezuelan government itself,” Finucane said, calling it another step in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “efforts to cover up regime change operations under the guise of counternarcotics.”
He said the administration is “fabricating a fact pattern” and “creating an alternate reality” to be able to publicly characterize its policy toward Venezuela as a counterterrorism operation.
Although designating a foreign organization as a terrorist organization carries no legal authority for military attack, and technically only allows for financial and diplomatic penalties such as asset freezes, the administration has nonetheless used it in recent days as a precursor to military action. The U.S. military attacked 22 small boats that the regime said were crewed by criminal organizations it designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
These designations have drawn scrutiny from legal experts because some of the gangs and cartels designated by the United States are motivated by profit rather than ideology. Terrorist groups have traditionally been defined as groups that carry out political violence.
Designating the Cartel de los Soles, which may not even be a formal organization, takes the logic already discussed a step further. “There is no principle of limitation because they are essentially operating outside the law,” Mr Finucane said.
