Cartel de los Soles in Venezuela: Corruption, Geopolitics, and US Allegations
Understanding the intersection of Venezuelan power, international tension, and allegations of drug trafficking
by Michael Lamonaca, 24 November 2025
The designation of Venezuela’s so-called Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States represents more than a legal label. It is a prism through which the deeper structures of Venezuelan power, corruption, and international geopolitics can be examined. Alleged to be led by President Nicolás Maduro and senior military officials, the group has been described by Washington as a system that has “corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary.” Yet the Venezuelan government rejects the existence of the cartel, framing it as a “vile lie” and a pretext for intervention. This divergence underscores the broader challenge of discerning fact from narrative in contemporary geopolitics.
The origins of the Cartel de los Soles trace back to the early 1990s, when Venezuelan media first applied the term to military figures implicated in drug trafficking. The “suns” referenced the insignia on generals’ epaulettes, yet over time the term became shorthand for alleged networks of corruption spanning various levels of the military. Scholars and former officials indicate that its activity intensified during the presidency of Hugo Chávez. The severing of ties with US counter-narcotics operations, combined with the regime’s ideological alliances with Colombia’s Farc guerrillas, created a context in which some Venezuelan officers found both incentive and opportunity to engage in illicit activity. In this sense, the cartel is less a traditional hierarchical organization than a diffuse system emerging from the interplay of economic crisis, institutional gaps, and political alignment.
Human behavior within this system reveals the dynamics of power and loyalty under strain. Mid- and lower-ranking officers, controlling key ports and border crossings, are reported to have leveraged their positions for personal gain while protecting the regime’s broader strategic interests. Meanwhile, allegations implicate senior figures, including Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, suggesting a top-down entanglement in the trafficking network. Exiled officials and former military insiders have corroborated aspects of this system to US authorities, resulting in indictments and high-profile guilty pleas. Yet, each account comes filtered through personal bias, political motives, or the strategic interests of host countries, complicating efforts to ascertain objective truth.
Historical parallels provide further clarity. The rise of the Cartel de los Soles mirrors other instances in Latin America where state institutions, weakened by crisis and political ideology, intersect with organized crime to create hybrid systems of governance and illicit activity. Similar patterns appeared during Colombia’s narco-state era in the 1980s and 1990s, when insurgent groups and military actors intertwined under shifting incentives. In each instance, the fusion of legality and criminality blurs conventional understandings of hierarchy and authority, producing structures that are simultaneously resilient, opaque, and highly consequential for both domestic and international stakeholders.
Competing narratives amplify the verification challenge. US authorities treat the cartel as a tangible network that threatens both regional stability and domestic security in the United States, justifying targeted sanctions and bounties. Venezuelan authorities dismiss the allegations as politically motivated fabrications, framing the designation as a pretext for intervention. Neighboring leaders, such as Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, have also questioned the group’s existence, highlighting the role of narrative in shaping geopolitical responses. The result is a contested informational terrain, where evidence, testimony, and strategic interest collide, leaving observers to navigate between partial truths, political signaling, and public perception.
The consequences of these dynamics extend beyond Venezuela’s borders. By framing elements of the state apparatus as a criminal-terrorist network, the US establishes new levers of pressure that influence diplomacy, regional alliances, and economic relations. At the same time, this designation escalates the stakes for internal actors, potentially incentivizing loyalty through both reward and fear. For international observers and analysts, the situation illustrates the difficulty of disentangling systemic corruption from geopolitical narrative, and of assessing risk when state institutions themselves are implicated in both governance and criminal activity.
Ultimately, the Cartel de los Soles exemplifies the broader lesson that clarity in international affairs requires attentiveness to structure, human behavior, and narrative. Whether the cartel is a formalized organization or a diffuse network of complicity, its existence in discourse — and its tangible impact on policy and perception — demonstrates how power, ideology, and opportunity coalesce. Understanding Venezuela today demands a recognition that truth is often layered, contested, and inseparable from the systems that generate it. In this contested terrain, the observer’s task is not to choose between narratives, but to trace the forces and choices that produce them, revealing the architecture beneath the surface.
Tags: #Venezuela #CarteldeLosSoles #Maduro #OrganizedCrime #Geopolitics #USForeignPolicy #Corruption #DrugTrafficking #HumanLayer #VerificationChallenge