The largest U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean in decades is striking at the heart of Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles, a criminal network embedded within Nicolás Maduro’s regime and accused of moving massive quantities of cocaine overseas, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.
According to three people with direct knowledge of the cartel’s operations, the “Caribbean Route” – long one of the busiest corridors for speedboats ferrying cocaine to Europe and the United States – has been effectively shut down by U.S. interdiction missions.
Launched last month, the operation is guided by a three-phase strategy: “Degrade, dismantle and destroy.” Intelligence assessments estimated that by late 2024, between 350 and 500 tons of cocaine were leaving Venezuela annually.
“The operation is having a real impact,” one source told the Miami Herald on condition of anonymity. “The Caribbean is totally controlled; not a single boat is leaving. The cash flow from trafficking is under direct threat, and that puts the cohesion of the military elite at risk. In three months they won’t have funds to pay the generals.”
The initial phase of the deployment includes a Marine air-ground task force aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima and two San Antonio-class transports, with more than 2,000 Marines prepared for rapid-response missions.
In total, more than 4,500 U.S. personnel – Marines and Navy – are operating in the region, supported by a cruiser, destroyers and a Los Angeles-class attack submarine armed with precision-guided missiles. Ten F-35 stealth fighters are also stationed in Puerto Rico, capable of outmatching Venezuela’s aging fleet of Sukhoi-30s and F-16s.
Since their arrival, U.S. forces have carried out at least four strikes on suspected drug-running boats, leaving 17 dead, according to Pentagon reports and statements by President Donald Trump.
The immediate goal is financial: cutting off the drug revenue that sustains loyalty among Venezuela’s senior military and police commanders, many of whom are accused of profiting directly from narcotrafficking.
With maritime routes disrupted, cocaine produced in Colombia’s Catatumbo region is piling up inside Venezuela. Maduro’s envoys have reportedly sought to revive older air and land corridors through Central America, working with Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. But those alternatives are more costly, eroding profits.
Meanwhile, shipments hidden in commercial freighters continue to reach Europe, though payments from those transactions take months to arrive, straining regime liquidity. “The real financial collapse will hit in the final quarter of the year,” one of the sources said.
Inside Venezuela, authorities have turned to heavier taxation and extortion of businesses to keep the state’s security apparatus afloat.
On Tuesday, Trump suggested the military mission in the Caribbean may soon expand. He said his administration is considering new military action against cartels from Venezuela. “We’re going to look very seriously at cartels coming by land,” he told reporters at the White House. He added that since the maritime strikes began, “we have absolutely no drugs entering our country by water, because they (the strikes) were lethal.”
NBC News has reported that options under review include drone strikes on cartel figures and clandestine drug labs inside Venezuela. Officials say decisions could come “within weeks.”
The Cartel de los Soles remains active along Colombia’s border, maintaining ties with guerrilla groups such as the ELN and with Mexican cartels to traffic cocaine, gold and other contraband. Catatumbo remains the epicenter, with more than 42,000 hectares of coca crops – the third-largest concentration in Colombia – yielding more than 330 tons annually.
Washington has long accused Maduro and his top allies of running the cartel. In 2020, the Justice Department indicted the Venezuelan president and more than a dozen officials, calling the regime a “narco-terrorist enterprise.” The U.S. has placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro – the largest reward ever offered for a sitting head of state – and $25 million for ruling-party strongman Diosdado Cabello.
Fourteen Venezuelan officials, including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, have been indicted on U.S. drug charges. Former military intelligence chief Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal and Gen. Clíver Alcalá are already in U.S. custody. Alcalá has pleaded guilty to collaborating with Colombia’s FARC rebels.
For years, U.S. prosecutors have described the cartel not as a traditional crime syndicate but as an informal alliance of military officers and ruling-party politicians who use state resources – airfields, diplomatic channels and naval facilities – to move cocaine on a massive scale.
Maduro has denied the accusations. This week, he signed a decree activating a state of emergency in the event of foreign aggression. Venezuelan officials condemned what they called threats of an “imperialist invasion,” warning of destabilization across the region.
“Our goal is to ensure that the entire nation, every citizen, has the support and protection of all the forces of Venezuelan society to respond to any threat or attack against our country,” Maduro said in a televised address.
Under Venezuela’s constitution, such a declaration allows the government to suspend some guarantees for up to 90 days, renewable once, though basic rights such as life and protection from torture remain in place.
© 2025 Miami Herald.
Visit miamiherald.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
