What is Venezuela’s ‘Cartel de los Soles’, the US-designated terrorist organisation led by Nicolás Maduro?

The term Cartel de los Soles, in Spanish means Cartel of the Suns. It originated in Venezuela in the 1990s as a colloquial label for a network of high-ranking military officers accused of using the drug trade to enrich themselves. Over a month before the US launched an operation capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, it had designated this cartel as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO). The 'suns' refer to the insignia worn on the epaulettes of senior Venezuelan military uniforms, according to multiple media reports. Initially, it described corruption within the national armed forces rather than a formal criminal organisation.

Over time the expression expanded beyond the military to encompass government officials and activities such as illegal mining, fuel smuggling and alleged drug trafficking. Critics and some analysts argue that Cartel de los Soles is not just a traditional cartel with a clearly defined leadership, hierarchy or structure, but rather a convenient shorthand for the widespread entanglement of state figures in criminal networks and corruption.

Maduro has been charged alongside his wife, his son and three other co-accused. A newly unsealed US justice department indictment accuses Maduro of four counts in total: conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. Prosecutors allege that Maduro partnered with “some of the most violent and prolific drug traffickers and narco-terrorists in the world”, facilitating the shipment of thousands of tonnes of cocaine into the United States. The Venezuelan president could make his first court appearance in New York City as early as Monday.

In 2020, the US Department of Justice issued indictments accusing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and members of his inner circle of narcoterrorism and drug trafficking in connection with what it described as Cartel de los Soles. These charges framed Maduro as a leader of a drug trafficking network moving cocaine toward the United States.

On November 24, 2025, the United States government formally classified Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under US immigration law, following a notice published in the Federal Register signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

US officials have asserted that Cartel de los Soles, along with other designated groups such as Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, is responsible for drug trafficking and related violence throughout the Western Hemisphere and into the United States and Europe.

Prior to its FTO status, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control had already labelled Cartel de los Soles as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, freezing any assets within US jurisdiction and prohibiting Americans from doing business with it, while accusing it of providing material support to other terrorist groups.