War on Drugs

Jacob Sullum | 1.7.2026 4:25 PM

On the same day that U.S. forces invaded Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro, the Justice Department published a federal indictment that supposedly justified the operation. Like the 2020 indictment that federal prosecutors obtained during President Donald Trump's first term, the revised version charges the former Venezuelan dictator with participating in conspiracies involving "narco-terrorism," cocaine trafficking, and machine gun possession. But there is a notable difference that highlights the slipperiness of Trump's attempts to justify legally dubious policies, including summary deportation of alleged gang members and his deadly military campaign against suspected drug boats, by describing his targets as "foreign terrorist organizations" (FTOs).

The 2020 indictment places Maduro at the center of "the Venezuelan Cártel de los Soles," which it describes as a "drug-trafficking organization comprised of high-ranking Venezuelan officials who abused the Venezuelan people and corrupted the legitimate institutions of Venezuela—including parts of the military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and the judiciary—to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States." That "drug-trafficking organization," the indictment says, "participated in a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy" with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla group that relies on the cocaine trade for funding.

The indictment explains that the Venezuelan group's name, which means "Cartel of the Suns," refers to "the sun insignias affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials who are members of the Cartel." It mentions Cártel de los Soles, which the Treasury Department and the State Department designated as an FTO last year, 33 times.

The new indictment, by contrast, refers just twice to Cártel de los Soles, which it describes as "a patronage system" run by top Venezuelan officials. It alleges that Maduro "participates in, perpetuates, and protects a culture of corruption in which powerful Venezuelan elites enrich themselves through drug trafficking and the protection of their partner drug traffickers." The "profits of that illegal activity," it says, "flow to corrupt rank-and-file civilian, military, and intelligence officials."

That description, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage notes, is more in........

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