US President Donald Trump has moved to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by designating Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation.
In previewing the step about a week ago, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the group of being "responsible for terrorist violence" in the Western Hemisphere.
But Cartel de los Soles — which the US government alleges is led by Mr Maduro — is not really a cartel.
Venezuelans began using the ironic term Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who had grown rich from drug-running.
The "suns" in the name refer to the epaulettes affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking military officers.
As corruption flourished nationwide, first under the late president Hugo Chávez and then under Mr Maduro, the term's use expanded to include police and government officials, as well as activities like illegal mining and fuel trafficking.
Mr Maduro's government scorned the White House's decision on Monday, describing the terror designation as a "ridiculous" measure being taken against a "non-existent group".
Adam Isaacson, director of defence oversight at the non-profit Washington Office on Latin America, agreed that the term does not refer to a "group", per se.
"It's not like a group that people would ever identify themselves as members [of]," Mr Isaacson said.
"They don't have regular meetings. They don't have a hierarchy."
Maduro alleges US is seeking regime change
The terrorist designation is the latest measure in the Trump administration's escalating pressure campaign on Venezuela, which it says is aimed at preventing drug trafficking into the US.
Mr Maduro and his government have always denied any involvement in crime, and have accused the US of seeking regime change out of a desire to control Venezuela's natural resources, especially its vast oil reserves.
"They want Venezuela's oil and gas reserves. For nothing, without paying. They want Venezuela's gold. They want Venezuela's diamonds, iron, bauxite. They want Venezuela's natural resources," Oil Minister Delcy Rodriguez said in comments on state television.
Foreign Minister Yvan Gil also spoke out, calling the terror designation "an infamous and vile lie to justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela, under the classic US regime-change format".
"This new manoeuvre will meet the same fate as previous and recurring aggressions against our country: failure," he said.
Mr Trump has said repeatedly he is not pursuing regime change.
However, he has also refused to rule out taking military action against Mr Maduro's government, and the US has dramatically ramped up its military presence in the Caribbean Sea in recent months.
An aircraft carrier strike group arrived in the region last week, and US planes have carried out air strikes on boats suspected of carrying drugs, killing more than 80 people.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said last week that the terrorist designation of Cartel de los Soles would provide a "whole bunch of new options to the United States" for pressuring Mr Maduro.
But Mr Hegseth, speaking in an interview with conservative news outlet OAN, did not provide details on what those options were, and declined to say whether the US military planned to strike land targets inside Venezuela, which would constitute a major expansion of the operation.
"Nothing is off the table, but nothing's automatically on the table," he said.
Trump administration officials have signalled that they find it difficult to see a situation in which Mr Maduro remaining in power could be an acceptable end game — but there is also strong belief inside the White House that his rule is unsustainable, according to a senior administration official not authorised to comment publicly.
US believes Maduro aims to 'flood' US with drugs
The US government's conviction that Mr Maduro is leading a drug-trafficking organisation came into focus in 2020, during Mr Trump's first term, when the Department of Justice announced the indictment of Venezuela's leader and his inner circle on narcoterrorism and other charges.
The indictment accused Mr Maduro, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López, 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".
Before laying down weapons as part of a 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 US-bound cocaine shipments — often with the support, or at least consent, of Venezuelan security forces.
Mr Maduro has denied the charges, and insists that the US is building a false drug-trafficking narrative to try to force him from office.
He and other government officials have repeatedly cited a United Nations report they say shows traffickers attempt to move only 5 per cent of the cocaine produced in Colombia through Venezuela.
Nevertheless, the US Department of Justice this year doubled the reward for information that led to his arrest to $US50 million ($77 million).
US authorities also alleged Mr Maduro's cartel gave material support to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa cartel, both of which were among the groups that the US designated as foreign terror organisations in February.
Terror label applied to criminal groups
Up until this year, the "foreign terrorist organisation" label had been reserved for groups like Islamic State or Al Qaeda that use violence for political ends.
The Trump administration applied it in February to eight Latin American criminal organisations involved in drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and other activities.
The administration blames such designated groups for operating the boats it is striking, but rarely identifies the organisations and has not provided any evidence.
It says the attacks, which began off the coast of Venezuela and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean, are meant to stop narcotics from flowing to American cities.
Mr Trump, like his predecessor, does not recognise Mr Maduro as Venezuela's president.
The authoritarian leader is on 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's candidate defeated him by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
He and senior officials have been repeatedly accused of human rights violations, including in the aftermath of the July 2024 election.
ABC/Wires
