U.S. Designates Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles as Global Terrorist Organization: Expanding Threat from Maduro Regime, Russia, and China
Executive Summary
The U.S. has designated Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles—headed by Nicolás Maduro and top regime figures—as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity, citing its direct support to international terrorist groups and its central role in narco-terrorism, human trafficking, and destabilization of the Western Hemisphere. The cartel’s integration with Venezuela’s state apparatus, alignment with the regimes of Russia and China, and coordination with groups like Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, significantly escalates the threat to U.S. national security.
Key Judgements
1. The U.S. designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a global terrorist organization marks an inflection point in the fight against transnational criminal-terrorist convergence, exposing the Maduro regime’s use of Venezuela’s state infrastructure to advance narco-terrorist objectives.
Evidence: The Treasury’s July 2025 sanctions identify Maduro and senior officials as cartel leaders, noting their direct support to terrorist groups including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel (U.S. Treasury).
2. Cartel de los Soles functions as a criminal-political-military network, leveraging the Venezuelan military, intelligence, and judiciary for large-scale narcotics trafficking, weapons transfers, human trafficking, and protection of terror-linked actors.
Evidence: DOJ indictments and investigative reporting tie the cartel to multi-ton cocaine shipments, arms supplies for FARC, and systemic government corruption (DOJ, InSight Crime).
3. The cartel’s support for designated foreign terrorist organizations—including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel—creates a powerful, interconnected network of criminal-terrorist entities targeting the U.S. through narcotics, migration, extortion, and violence.
Evidence: OFAC’s July 2025 action and State Department’s February 2025 terror designations emphasize material support and shared operational goals (Fox News).
4. Venezuela’s strategic partnerships with Russia and China amplify the risk, providing the regime with diplomatic protection, economic resources, and military-technological capabilities while eroding U.S. leverage in the region.
Evidence: May 2025 Moscow partnership treaty, deepening energy/military/technology ties, and China’s economic and security investment in Venezuela (Moscow Times, CFR).
5. The convergence of narco-terrorism, state corruption, and foreign authoritarian support creates a multi-domain threat to the U.S. that transcends traditional law enforcement and counter-narcotics approaches, requiring whole-of-government and multilateral action.
Evidence: Sanctions, indictments, and congressional testimony highlight the challenge of countering a regime-criminal-terrorist hybrid entity with powerful international backers.
Analysis
The U.S. Treasury’s July 2025 designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization is more than a symbolic escalation; it is a recognition of a new, highly adaptive threat paradigm in the Western Hemisphere. Headed by Nicolás Maduro and shielded by Venezuela’s corrupted state infrastructure, the cartel operates as a fusion of criminal enterprise and rogue regime. Its activities—drug trafficking, arms smuggling, money laundering, and terror facilitation—are no longer limited to clandestine criminality but are embedded within the core functions of the Venezuelan state, weaponizing migration, violence, and illicit economies against U.S. and regional stability.
The cartel’s evolution has been shaped by its partnership with foreign terrorist organizations. Its material support for the Tren de Aragua—a Venezuelan-origin group notorious for drug trafficking, human smuggling, and sexual exploitation—and the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s deadliest criminal organizations, forms a nexus that stretches from South America to the U.S. border. These groups not only facilitate the flow of narcotics, notably fentanyl and cocaine, into American cities but also engage in human trafficking and exploit irregular migration routes, generating both profit and instability.
The roots of this criminal-terrorist convergence lie in the systematic hollowing out of Venezuela’s institutions. Maduro and his senior allies, including key military, intelligence, and judicial officials, have transformed the state into a guarantor and participant in the cocaine trade, with U.S. indictments dating back over a decade. The Cartel de los Soles is not a conventional cartel; it is a network of networks, controlling strategic territory, infrastructure, and government agencies, dispensing rewards and impunity to those who serve its interests. In regions bordering Colombia, and in key shipping and air transport corridors, military officials act as both protectors and facilitators of the drug trade, often rotating postings to maximize profit and shield the network from investigation.
What sets this threat apart is its international dimension. The regime’s alliance with Russia has deepened through formal strategic treaties and ongoing security, energy, and intelligence cooperation. Russia’s support extends from diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council to arms deals and the transfer of surveillance technology. China, meanwhile, has become Venezuela’s largest creditor, investor, and a critical supplier of telecommunications and dual-use technology, including military hardware. These partnerships provide the Maduro regime—and, by extension, the cartel—with the resilience to survive sanctions, evade Western pressure, and integrate into broader anti-U.S. authoritarian blocs.
For the United States, the implications are grave. The Cartel de los Soles poses a hybrid threat that bridges criminality, state corruption, and terrorism, amplified by great power competition. Its use of narcotics as a weapon, coupled with human trafficking and the penetration of U.S. financial and border systems, presents persistent operational risks. The regime’s access to Russian and Chinese technology, military support, and economic lifelines further complicates U.S. countermeasures. The recent U.S. sanctions are significant, but the entrenched nature of the network, its regional alliances, and foreign backing mean that dismantling it will require sustained intelligence, law enforcement, diplomatic, and economic action, as well as robust coordination with Latin American and European partners.
