The United States is preparing to designate the Cartel de los Soles linked to Maduro as a terrorist organization. It’s not a cartel per se

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is set to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday by designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. But the entity that the US government claims is led by Maduro is not a cartel per se.

The designation is the latest action in the Trump administration’s escalating campaign to combat drug trafficking into the United States. In a preview of the move about a week ago, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the Cartel de los Soles, or Sun Cartel, of being “responsible for terrorist violence” in the Western Hemisphere.

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The move scheduled for Monday comes as Trump evaluates whether to launch military action against Venezuela, which Trump has not ruled out despite raising the possibility of talks with Maduro. Land strikes or other actions would be a major expansion of a months-long operation that included a massive military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and strikes on boats accused of drug smuggling, killing more than 80 people.

Venezuelans began using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who became wealthy from drug trafficking. As corruption later spread across the country, first under the late President Hugo Chavez and then under Maduro, its use was loosely extended to include police and government officials as well as activities such as illegal mining and fuel trafficking. The “suns” in the name refer to the epaulettes affixed to the uniforms of senior military officers.

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The umbrella term was raised to a Maduro-led drug trafficking organization in 2020, when the US Justice Department in Trump’s first term announced the indictment of the Venezuelan leader and his inner circle on drug terrorism and other charges.

“It’s not a group,” said Adam Isaacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin American Affairs. “It’s not like a group where people can identify themselves as members. They don’t have regular meetings. They don’t have a hierarchy.”

Trump expands terrorism designation to include gangs

Until this year, the foreign terrorist organization designation was reserved for groups such as the Islamic State or Al Qaeda that use violence to achieve political goals. The Trump administration applied it last February to eight criminal organizations in Latin America involved in drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, and other activities.

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The administration blames such specific groups for operating the boats that strike them, but it rarely identifies the organizations and has provided no evidence. It says the attacks, which began off the coast of Venezuela and later expanded to the eastern Pacific, were aimed at preventing the flow of drugs into American cities.

But many, including Maduro himself, see the military moves as an attempt to end the ruling party’s 26-year hold on power.

Since the arrival of US military ships and troops in the Caribbean months ago, Venezuela’s US-backed political opposition has also reignited its lifelong promise to remove Maduro from office, raising speculation about the purpose of what the Trump administration has called an anti-drug operation.

Trump, like his predecessor, does not recognize Maduro as president of Venezuela.

He watches: US military strikes on suspected drug traffickers raise legal and diplomatic concerns

Maduro is serving his third term in office after ruling party loyalists declared him the winner of last year’s presidential election despite credible evidence that the opposition candidate defeated him by a margin of more than 2 to 1. He and senior officials have been repeatedly accused of human rights violations of real and perceived government opponents, including in the wake of the July 2024 elections.

In a statement on Monday, Maduro’s government categorically denied the existence of the cartel, calling the Trump administration’s accusations an “absurd fabrication” aimed at “justifying illegal and illegitimate intervention against Venezuela.”

Hegseth says classification offers ‘new options’

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that the upcoming designation of the de los Soles Cartel would provide “a whole host of new options for the United States” to deal with Maduro. But Hegseth, speaking in an interview with conservative news outlet OAN, did not provide details about what those options might be and declined to say whether the U.S. military intends to strike ground targets inside Venezuela.

“So there is nothing on the table, but nothing is automatically on the table,” he said.

Trump administration officials have indicated that they have difficulty seeing a situation in which Maduro remaining in power could be an acceptable ending. But as Trump considers a range of military and non-military options, including covert CIA action, for next steps, there is a strong belief within the administration that Maduro’s rule is “not sustainable,” according to a senior administration official who is not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter.

The official added that Trump was listening carefully to his intelligence team, who informed him that captured conversations inside Venezuela indicated growing concern from Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials as US strikes continued. The official said Trump is currently “very satisfied and satisfied” with the impact of the strikes.

At the same time, appeals from Maduro and others close to the Venezuelan leader to speak directly to the administration, which are being conveyed through various intermediaries and channels, appear to be more passionate, the official said. But Trump did not impose sanctions on any intermediaries for speaking with Maduro on behalf of the US administration.

The indictment alleges conspiracy to “flood” the United States with drugs

The 2020 indictment accused Maduro, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, among others, of conspiring with Colombian rebels and members of the Venezuelan military for several years to “flood the United States with cocaine” and use the drug trade “as a weapon against America.” Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine in the world.

Before laying down the weapons as part of the 2016 peace deal, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, regularly used the porous border region with Venezuela as a safe haven and hub for cocaine shipments bound for the United States — often with the support or at least approval of Venezuelan security forces. The dissidents continued to work. The Colombian National Liberation Army militia is also involved in the illicit trade.

Maduro denied these accusations. This year, the US Department of Justice doubled the reward to $50 million for anyone providing information leading to Maduro’s arrest.

Maduro insists the United States is building a false narrative about drug trafficking to try to force him from office. He and other government officials have repeatedly cited a United Nations report that they say shows traffickers are trying to move only 5% of the cocaine produced in Colombia through Venezuela.

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Cartel de los Soles in July, saying Maduro and his top allies exploited the power of the Venezuelan government, military and intelligence services to help the cartel smuggle drugs into the United States.

US authorities also alleged that Maduro’s cartel provided material support to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, both of which were among the organizations the US designated as foreign terrorist organizations in February.

Associated Press writer Amer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.