US Designates Cartel de los Soles as Terrorist Group

The United States formally designated the Cartel de los Soles, a purported network of Venezuelan military and government officials accused of drug trafficking, as a foreign terrorist organization on Monday, escalating tensions with President Nicolás Maduro's administration amid a significant U.S. military presence in the Caribbean.

The State Department announcement targets Maduro and high-ranking allies, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, whom U.S. officials allege lead the group in coordinating cocaine shipments to the United States and Europe. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the cartel, headed by Maduro and other figures in the illegitimate regime, has corrupted Venezuela's military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary. The designation imposes strict penalties, including asset freezes and prohibitions on material support, building on a July Treasury Department classification of the group as a specially designated global terrorist entity.

The term Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, originated in the 1990s as a journalistic reference to corruption among Venezuelan officers, named for the sun insignia...