The fraught relationship between the United States and Venezuela has entered a new chapter, with the Trump administration escalating its campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. In its latest move, the U.S. government has increased the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to an unprecedented $50 million, reiterating its accusation that he leads the criminal organization known as the Cartel of the Suns.
Concurrently, the U.S. has designated the Cartel of the Suns an international terrorist organization. This designation triggers economic sanctions, requiring that any assets of the group or its members within U.S. jurisdiction be blocked and reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
These narco-terrorism allegations, which the Venezuelan government has consistently and vehemently denied, first emerged in 2020. At that time, the Trump administration identified Maduro as the cartel’s leader and offered an initial $15 million reward. The Biden administration later increased this amount to $25 million following what a senior U.S. official described as Maduro’s “fraudulent presidential inauguration” for a third term after the disputed July 2024 election.
Venezuelan officials have swiftly condemned the latest escalation. Foreign Minister Yván Gil dismissed the increased reward as “the most ridiculous smokescreen we have seen,” while Attorney General Tarek William Saab labeled it a “flagrant violation of international law, an attack on our sovereignty, and a gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”
Other high-ranking officials have also rejected the charges. Diosdado Cabello, Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace, has previously called the Cartel of the Suns an “invention” and a “great lie for manipulation” by the U.S. Similarly, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López has denounced the “buffoonish” and “interventionist” accusations.
In a video statement, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Maduro of using cartels to bring “deadly drugs and violence to our country.” She added, “He is one of the biggest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and will be held accountable for his despicable crimes.”
The move comes despite recent diplomatic engagements between Washington and Caracas, including a prisoner exchange and the authorized return of Chevron’s operations in Venezuela. This signals what one analyst calls a “renewed phase of maximum pressure” from the Trump administration.
The Cartel of the Suns Explained
According to U.S. authorities and security experts, the Cartel of the Suns is not a traditional, hierarchical criminal organization but rather a decentralized network of corrupt Venezuelan officials. The name, first used in 1993, derives from the sun-shaped insignias worn on the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military generals implicated in drug trafficking.
Edgardo Buscaglia, a senior research scholar at Columbia University and an expert on organized crime, states the network was first identified in the 1990s and initially involved military officials using state infrastructure to traffic cocaine. Buscaglia asserts that under President Hugo Chávez, the network expanded to include civilian officials and illicit activities like illegal gold mining. “Maduro inherited the criminal structure that Chávez left him and expanded it enormously,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleges the group has “corrupted the legitimate institutions of Venezuela—including parts of its military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and judiciary—to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States.”
A key figure in the U.S. case is Hugo Carvajal Barrios, Venezuela’s former director of military intelligence. Extradited from Spain in 2023, Carvajal pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges and is considered a principal leader of the cartel. His sentencing is scheduled for October 29.
However, Insight Crime, a think tank specializing in organized crime, suggests that portraying Maduro as the head of a top-down organization is an “oversimplification.” The group describes the Cartel of the Suns as “a corrupt network in which military and political officials benefit from deals with drug traffickers,” composed of disparate cells with unknown levels of coordination.
A Clash of Narratives
The situation highlights two starkly different narratives. “The U.S. views Maduro as the capo, using cocaine not just for profit but as a strategic weapon against the United States,” said Imdat Oner, a political analyst at Florida International University and a former Turkish diplomat based in Venezuela. “In Caracas, the reaction is the opposite. They see it as a profound offense, an attack on Venezuela’s sovereignty, and a way to undermine Maduro’s legitimacy.”
Oner believes the increased reward is unlikely to have an immediate effect within Venezuela, where Maduro maintains a firm grip on the security forces. “However, outside the country, the measure only increases his isolation,” he noted. “Traveling beyond his small circle of friendly countries is becoming riskier, and the legal cases against him continue to pile up. For now, it is simply the latest episode in a diplomatic confrontation between Caracas and Washington that has been developing for years.”
