Posted on 11/24/2025 4:10:55 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The United States has designated the Cartel de los Soles (Spanish for Cartel of the Suns) - a group it alleges is headed by Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, and senior figures in his government - as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Labelling an organisation as a terrorist group gives US law enforcement and military agencies broader powers to target and dismantle it.
In recent months, the US has been ramping up pressure on Maduro, saying his government is illegitimate following last year's election, which was widely dismissed as rigged. The designation gives it another way to turn up the heat.
But questions have been raised as to whether Cartel de los Soles actually exists and Venezuela's foreign ministry has "categorically, firmly, and absolutely rejected" the designation, which it describes as a "new and ridiculous lie".
Not surprisingly, Venezuela's interior and justice minister, Diosdado Cabello, has long called it an "invention".
Cabello, who is alleged to be one of the high-ranking members of the cartel, has accused US officials of using it as an excuse to target those they do not like.
"Whenever someone bothers them, they name them as the head of the Cartel de los Soles," he said in August.
Gustavo Petro, the left-wing president of Venezuela's neighbour, Colombia, has also denied the cartel's existence.
"It is the fictional excuse of the far right to bring down governments that do not obey them," he wrote on X in August.
But the US state department is adamant that the Cartel de los Soles not only exists but that it has "corrupted Venezuela's military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary".
Experts consulted by the BBC say the truth lies somewhere in between.
The term Cartel de los Soles first emerged in the early 1990s.
It was coined by the Venezuelan media in the wake...
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
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Trump lost focus. He wants to be the WORLD Leader instead of the Leader of the United States of America.
United States of America first!
Midterms are coming up, and it will be a bloodbath if Trump doesn’t change his focus.
LOL- sure he wants to be the leader of the world...since 2015 he’s been talking about illegals pouring into America and other nations sending their worst through our previously open borders.....
Which country has opened up the prisons and sent them to America??? Which country has helped poison America with drugs??? Which country is fraternizing with hamas? the chicoms? and other bad actors to bring down America???
Right Venezuela....
You believe the BBC (who, as we all know, is always so honest when it comes to Donald Trump)....i’ll stick with the guy i voted for- three times...
A pretty thorough discussion of this scum org
Which the left is desperately trying to make a victim of Trump
https://insightcrime.org/investigations/beyond-the-cartel-of-the-suns/
Yes, we have absolutely zero stake in the going’s on in South America..................[s]
I would Mexico and China to that list.
Is that you, Rand?
Experts consulted by the BBC say the truth lies somewhere in between. …Namely?
Raúl Benítez-Manau, an organized crime expert from Mexico’s UNAM university, says the group’s activities started in the late 1980s and early 1990s in response to developments in neighboring Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine. …And Señor Benítez-Manau has exactly what credibility, and what makes him an “expert”? This is called argumentum ad verecundiam and is a logical fallacy.
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