Cartel of the Suns

Cartel of the Suns (Spanish: Cartel de los Soles, Spanish pronunciation:) is an umbrella term used to describe an alleged loose drug trafficking network or networks of cells also participating in other related criminal activity including illegal mining and smuggling of sanctioned resources and laundering of illicit profits involving members of the BolivarianVenezuelan Government, the Armed Forces and Intelligence Service, including high-ranking officers and political officials. Experts studying the drug trade do not use the term to refer to a single hierarchical organization or a literal drug cartel, but as journalistic shorthand for an informal system of corruption by which military and political officials profit by working with drug traffickers.

The term Cartel of the Suns was first used in 1993 as a journalistic label following a political scandal involving Venezuelan military officials who were implicated in a CIA plot to smuggle cocaine into the United States in order to infiltrate Colombian cartels. The term was inspired by the "soles" (sun emblems) on Venezuelan generals' uniforms. Apart from drug trafficking, members of the Venezuelan Armed Forces have also been linked to illegal mining, money laundering, and smuggling raw materials such as oil, or gold.

While multiple incidents of Venezuelan Armed Forces members or Bolivarian Republic officials participating in drug trafficking have been documented, the US allegation that the Cartel of the Suns constitutes a formal organization or organized network led by Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has generally been rejected by independent experts as unsubstantiated. The subsequent designation of Cartel of the Suns as a Foreign Terrorist Organization was criticized as providing a potential legal rationale for regime change in Venezuela, coinciding with a significant US military buildup in the region.

After Maduro's capture by the United States in January 2026 (Operation Absolute Resolve), the US Department of Justice issued a revised indictment against him that abandoned the characterization of the Cartel de los Soles as a formal organization and instead described his oversight of a "patronage system" and "culture of corruption" funded by drug trafficking. US secretary of state Marco Rubio continued to refer to the Cartel of the Suns as a drug cartel.