The move blocks the group’s U.S. assets and expands Washington’s campaign to isolate Venezuela’s socialist regime over drug‑trafficking and repression.
The Treasury Department on Friday designated Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles—known in English as the Cartel of the Suns—as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity, accusing President Nicolas Maduro and senior members of his regime of leading the group and supporting major drug cartels whose activities threaten U.S. national security.
The designation, issued by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on July 25 under counterterrorism authorities, blocks all property and interests of the group within U.S. jurisdiction, and generally prohibits Americans from engaging in transactions with it.
“Today’s action further exposes the illegitimate Maduro regime’s facilitation of narco-terrorism through terrorist groups like Cartel de los Soles,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“The Treasury Department will continue to execute on President [Donald] Trump’s pledge to put America First by cracking down on violent organizations, including Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel, and their facilitators, like Cartel de los Soles.”
Treasury officials said the cartel operates from Venezuela and is headed by Maduro, along with other senior figures in the regime. The group allegedly infiltrated key state institutions—military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary—to facilitate large‑scale narcotics trafficking into the United States. Its name derives from the sun insignias worn by Venezuelan military officers.
Washington accuses the cartel of providing material support to two groups already on U.S. terrorist lists: Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua.
The latter is a Venezuelan gang that Trump has accused of engaging in an invasion of, and “irregular warfare” against, the United States, using illicit narcotics and mass illegal immigration as weapons.
The State Department designated both Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa cartel as SDGTs and Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) earlier this year, alongside several other Mexican cartels and the MS‑13 gang.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Embassy of Venezuela in Europe—as its U.S. embassy and consulates are closed—with a request for comment on the sanctions.
By Tom Ozimek
