The USS Sampson docked in Panama City on September 2 amid Washington’s growing military build-up in Caribbean waters. (Getty Images)
The US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has bombed several Venezuelan small vessels allegedly carrying drugs to the US, killing entire crews. The strikes come amid the Trump administration’s military deployment to the Caribbean as part of its revived “war on drugs”, with the primary targets being cartels in the region, whether real or alleged.
Legal experts have argued that US actions amount to extrajudicial killings, noting that the crews were not identified and no narcotics cargoes were seized, and that the use of armed force was disproportionate, contravening international human rights and maritime law.
Caracas has denounced the US military deployment in the Caribbean as an attempt to provoke a war, using a false “narco-state” narrative against the Maduro government.
‘Narcoterrorists’ or civilians?
In September, US President Donald Trump authorized deadly strikes against boats suspected of transporting drugs, with no interception, capture, or seizure procedures.
Trump also signaled that he is considering strikes on land and inside Venezuela.
First strike
The first strike occurred on September 2. Trump posted a 25-second clip showing a vessel being destroyed by what was later revealed to be a missile fired from a drone. He claimed that the operation killed 11 members of “Tren de Aragua,” a US-designated “foreign terrorist organization.”
Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello stated that the 11 men were civilians and that authorities had communicated with their families. However, he did not identify the victims by name. According to unverified local reports, the 11 people killed were from San Juan de Unare, in the northeastern coastal Sucre state, where the vessel allegedly departed.
Anonymous US officials said the 11-person crew attempted to turn around after spotting US aircraft, and some were killed in a follow-up attack after surviving the initial strike.
Second strike
The second strike was reported on September 15. The 27-second clip published by Trump shows a similar operation: a bird’s-eye view of a small boat being bombed. The strike killed three men on board, which Trump claimed were “confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela […] headed to the US.”
After the bombing, Trump said there were “big bags of cocaine and fentanyl” scattered in the ocean, but US authorities have not released any footage of the alleged drug cargo.
Third and fourth strikes
The third strike was first announced on September 16 and confirmed three days later by President Trump via Truth Social. The one-minute clip shows a speedboat being struck by an airstrike. In the post, Trump said three “male narcoterrorists” were killed and that the vessel was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.”
The fourth strike took place on October 3. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth published a 37-second clip showing the boat engulfed in flames after what appeared to be several strikes. He claimed that “four male narco-terrorists” were killed and that the vessel was transporting “substantial amounts of narcotics.” Afterwards, the Trump administration told Congress it is engaged in “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
At least 21 people have been killed in the four bombings (Screenshots)
In contrast to the initial bombing, the Trump administration was more evasive regarding the second, third and fourth strikes, omitting any mention of Tren de Aragua or other cartels to avoid providing further explanations after domestic pushback and warnings from legal experts that the bombings amount to extrajudicial killings.
None of the four released videos displayed dates, coordinates, or visible signs of combat, interception, or cargo seizure. The alleged presence of narcotics appears to rest almost entirely on statements from Trump and his officials.
The useful ‘narco-state’ narrative
According to Washington, Venezuela is greatly responsible for the US narcotics crisis, with a narrative that also seems to accommodate US domestic and foreign objectives.
‘Tren de Aragua’
In February, the US Department of State added “Tren de Aragua” to its list of terrorist organizations, claiming that its members were “authorised to attack and kill US law enforcement” and that the gang was involved in kidnapping, extortion and bribery.
President Trump accused the Maduro government, without providing evidence, of having links to Tren de Aragua and of deliberately sending its members to “invade” the US.
In March, this blanket accusation was used to ramp up mass deportations and to send 252 Venezuelan migrant men to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, without due process. The gang affiliation was based on profiling criteria such as tattoos and nationality. The men were freed five months later after Caracas’ efforts and independent investigations cleared them of gang accusations.
In July, the Department of State broadened its narrative to link Tren de Aragua to organized crime and narcotics trafficking, giving Trump an opening to claim that the 11 people killed in the first boat strike in September were “Tren de Aragua” drug operators. No public explanation has clarified how those on board were identified as gang members.
In reality, “Tren de Aragua” was a prison gang from Aragua state that was dismantled in a 2023 raid. According to a leaked US intelligence memo, the gang did not have any affiliation with the government and it did not evolve into a regional threat or drug-trafficking outfit beyond petty street-level distribution.
‘Cartel de los Soles’ and Maduro’s indictment
“Cartel de los Soles” re-entered mainstream discourse as a designated “foreign terrorist organization” in July to brand the entire Venezuelan government, from the president to the military, as a cartel. It also connected the alleged cartel to “Tren de Aragua,” the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, and Colombian armed and drug trafficking groups.
In August, the Trump administration raised the bounty for information leading to President Maduro’s arrest from US $25 million (set in January) to $50 million. The bounty initially stood at $15 million as part of a 2020 indictment by the Southern District of New York against Maduro and 14 other officials accused of “narcoterrorism.”
US officials have never provided court-backed evidence to prove the cartel’s existence nor to support any of the claims against Maduro and Venezuelan institutions. The Mexican and Colombian governments have asserted there is zero proof of Venezuelan government involvement in any narcotics activities.
Although the indictment remains an unproven allegation, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio uses it as a legal justification for the military build-up in the Caribbean and targeting Caracas as a cartel. Rubio also omits the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in actual drug trafficking in Venezuela before the Bolivarian Process.
The so-called cartel’s first origin: the CIA
A cocaine trafficking scheme in Venezuela during the 1980s–90s involving a CIA asset and Venezuelan general, along with other unconnected cases, has been misrepresented, and intentionally so, as the origin of a supposed top-down structure known as the “Cartel de los Soles,” a term referencing the sun (“sol”) insignia worn by senior Venezuelan military officials.
In 1993, an exposé by US journalist Mike Wallace revealed that the CIA collaborated with Venezuelan General Ramón Guillén Dávila, head of Venezuela’s National Guard anti-drug unit between 1987 and 1991 and a 1967 School of the Americas graduate, to smuggle at least 22 tons of cocaine produced in Colombia into Venezuelan territory, which was later flown directly to the US.
The operation was busted once in late 1990 when US Customs Service seized 998 pounds of cocaine at the Miami International Airport and traced it back to the CIA and Guillén. It was later discovered that the scheme was led by Jim Campbell, the CIA’s Venezuela station chief, and Mark McFarland, the CIA’s officer in charge in Caracas.
On the left, an NYT article about the drug seizure in late 1990. On the right, General Guillén and the CIA drug cargo.
The alleged mission was to infiltrate and gain intelligence on Colombian drug cartels. However, “no valuable intelligence” was ever produced from the CIA cocaine smuggling scheme, according to then-DEA director Robert C. Bronner, who claimed the DEA Caracas-based agents had no part in the operation, but were fully aware and stayed silent.
After being granted immunity, Guillén confessed to a Miami court that he had profited from the cocaine smuggling. However, when the investigation was reopened by a grand jury in November 1993, Guillén failed to appear. The general was never extradited to stand trial in the US and was imprisoned in Venezuela for a few months before being released.
The CIA made an internal investigation and found “no wrongdoing.”. Tons of cocaine hit the streets in the US, and the parts involved (including Colombia’s Medellin cartel) profited without consequence. CIA officials, interviewed by Wallace, also tried to excuse themselves, stating the DEA “does this all the time, they let the drug walk.”
These events not only preceded President Hugo Chávez’s rise to power in 1999, but Chávez himself also expelled the DEA from Venezuela in 2005 for espionage and drug trafficking operations involving undercover agents who were attempting to incriminate Venezuelan officials. Leaked documents in 2014 and 2024 corroborated the DEA’s destabilization activities.
At the same time, Chávez stifled US intelligence cover-up operations. In 2007, then-retired General Guillén was detained in Venezuela in relation to a CIA-led plot to assassinate Chávez. This was after the 2002 US-backed, short-lived coup.
The Venezuelan governments in power when the CIA-Guillén drug trafficking took place were never accused of running a “narco-state.” This narrative only made its appearance to criminalize Chávez, with US officials accusing him of exactly what the CIA, DEA, and their Venezuelan asset had done: collaborating with Colombian cartels and armed groups to smuggle cocaine to the US. Except this time, there was no real evidence.
The cartel’s second origin: the media and defectors
Following Chávez’s death in 2013, the “narco-state” narrative was revamped and seemingly transferred first against Chavista leader Diosdado Cabello and then President Maduro, with media outlets using defectors and fugitives of Venezuelan justice as star witnesses.
In early 2015, the “Cartel de los Soles” myth appeared in a series of reports by the Spanish outlet ABC, filled with speculations that portrayed Cabello, then-National Assembly (AN) president, as the so-called cartel’s top man.
The sole source was the confession by former Chávez and Cabello bodyguard Leamsy Salazar, who defected to the US in late 2014 under DEA protection. Salazar became Washington’s bottomless well of unsubstantiated claims, from witnessing Cabello order cocaine shipments to the US to overhearing Chávez order the delivery of weapons and oil funds to Colombia’s FARC.
The ABC reports were praised by William Brownfield, then US Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Brownfield was a staunch regime change campaigner who criticized Chávez’s oil nationalization. In 2018, he demanded harsher sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector to “accelerate the suffering” of the people.
Another convenient asset who has pushed the “narco-state” narrative is Eladio Aponte, a former Venezuelan Supreme Court judge who fled to the US in 2012 with DEA protection after being accused by Venezuelan judicial authorities of having ties to drug kingpin Walid Makled. Aponte has since been alleged to have been a witness in drug cases in the US.
The most notorious star witnesses, however, are Hugo ‘El Pollo’ Carvajal, Venezuela’s former intelligence chief, and retired Venezuelan Major General Cliver Alcalá. Both are named as defendants in the 2020 US indictment against Venezuelan officials.
Carvajal broke ties with the Maduro government in 2017 and two years later fled Venezuela after calling for a military insurrection and pledging support for Juan Guaidó’s US-backed “interim government.” He was detained in Spain in 2021 and fought extradition to both Venezuela and the US by offering Spanish authorities information concerning alleged illegal Venezuelan funding of Spain’s leftist PODEMOS party. He was finally extradited to the US in July 2023 and later pled guilty to conspiring to import cocaine into the US.
The former intelligence chief is scheduled to be sentenced on October 29 and could face life imprisonment. However, Carvajal’s guilty plea contrasted with his previous denials, leading to speculation about a reduced sentence.
Clockwise: Leamsy Salazar, Eladio Aponte, Hugo ‘El Pollo’ Carvajal and Cliver Alcalá.
Alcalá’s story is similar. He broke with the Maduro government in 2013. He was later involved in two coup plots, including the failed “Operation Gideon.” However, he was detained in Colombia on March 23, 2020, for weapons smuggling—just weeks before the ill-fated mercenary invasion. Three days later, the US Justice Department issued the “narcoterrorism” indictment, and Alcalá surrendered to the DEA and was flown to the US. However, during the trial, he denied the drug trafficking charges and said he had previously met at least seven times with US officials.
Facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 50 years, Alcalá negotiated his sentence and was convicted to almost 22 years in 2024 on charges of providing weapons to Colombia’s FARC. Prosecutors quietly dropped the drug-trafficking charges as part of the plea bargain.
Yet, Alcalá is viewed by the media as the first leader from the so-called “Cartel de los Soles” to be convicted. Over the years, drug trafficking claims against Caracas have been reported by major outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, relying on the unsubstantiated testimonies from both defectors.
A cover-up for intervention
In 2007, two years after expelling the DEA, Venezuela was declared by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) a territory free of illicit crops, and the seizure of narcotics grew every year since. In 2025 alone, Venezuela seized 60 tons of drugs, according to military spokespeople.
The 2025 UN World Drug Report once again concluded that Venezuela is neither a major drug producer nor a key international trafficking corridor. The so-called “Cartel de los Soles” and “Tren de Aragua” are not even a footnote.
The report is very clear: Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are the primary sources of cocaine in Latin America, with the vast majority (over 80 percent) of shipments reaching the US and Europe via the eastern Pacific Ocean and Washington-allied Central American nations. The 2017 DEA report also concluded that less than 10 percent of US-bound cocaine passes through Venezuela. The agency’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment report does not even include any reference to Venezuela, “Cartel de los Soles,” or “Tren de Aragua.”
UNODC also notes that synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and methamphetamine are produced in clandestine North American labs and move across the US–Mexico border, debunking Trump’s claims that fentanyl in the US comes from Venezuela.
Pino Arlacchi, former UNODC Executive Director, argues that the “narco-state” narrative is “propaganda disguised as intelligence” used to justify an oil-driven regime change agenda.
Military intervention on the horizon?
With the claim that Maduro heads a drug cartel, Washington’s renewed “war on drugs” and regime-change objectives have become indistinguishable. A threat that follows 25 years of oil-rich Venezuela being in Washington’s sights, facing everything from crippling economic sanctions to mercenary incursions.
Trump’s top officials are reportedly pressuring for military strikes inside Venezuela, with White House staffer Stephen Miller said to be behind the return to gunboat diplomacy to coerce Latin American nations into bowing down to Washington.
Some 4,500 US troops and at least eight warships are now deployed off Venezuela’s coasts. This force to destroy small purported drug vessels is disproportionately large. And although not enough for an invasion, this Caribbean deployment, away from Pacific drug routes, signals political aims over genuine counternarcotics efforts. The New York Times also reports clandestine elite forces being deployed in the region, suggesting potential commando incursions could be in the works.
On October 2, Venezuela denounced the “illegal incursion” of five US fighter jets flying close to its shores, calling it “a provocation that threatens national sovereignty and contravenes international law.” Caracas presented a complaint to the UN Security Council. Washington has dispatched at least ten F-35 aircraft to Puerto Rico as part of its military build-up.
Caracas has called for peace and dialogue while also launching defense exercises and preparing to declare a State of Exterior Commotion. A country under siege, once again.
