Is Maduro linked to drug trafficking, as Trump accuses? Here’s what the evidence says

Several experts on organized crime in Venezuela and US intelligence themselves contradict Trump’s idea that Venezuelan gangs are “invading” the United States.

For several years now, the United States has accused Nicolás Maduro of facilitating drug trafficking and using drugs as a political weapon against Washington.

But are there facts that justify the US accusations and the recent capture of the Venezuelan president after the attacks in Caracas?

The American accusation

In March 2020, the US Department of Justice made public charges against Maduro and several current and former Venezuelan officials for crimes that include narcoterrorismconspiracy to import cocaine into the United States and weapons-related crimes.

US prosecutors claimed that Maduro helped manage a network known as the “Cartel de los Soles”accused of facilitating the shipment of cocaine from Colombia through Venezuela to international markets, especially to the United States, which is the largest consumer of cocaine in the world.

The accusations represented a significant escalation of US pressureThe one about Caracas. Washington also announced multimillion-dollar rewards for information leading to Maduro’s arrest or conviction, with Trump recently raising the reward to $55 million.

The allegations are also behind the growing American presence in the Caribbean Sea and the several attacks on Venezuelan ships carried out by US forces in recent months, which resulted in dozens of deaths.

Additionally, the Trump administration has intensified the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants, even if they are in the country legally, claiming that they are members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) cartelanother criminal group that the White House alleges has ties to the Venezuelan Government and has declared to be a terrorist organization.

Washington claims that the gang is “invading” the United States with Maduro’s connivance and used this pretext to invoke the Alien Enemies Lawwhich authorizes the Executive Branch to summarily deport foreigners whose countries of origin are at war with the United States. Legal experts believe the law requires that the invasion or incursion be linked to the actions of a foreign governmenthence Trump’s attempts to associate Maduro with gangs.

In this way, dozens of Venezuelans with refugee status were sent — without any trial or legal recourse — to the CECOT prison in El Salvador, which is compared to a “” due to its inhumane conditions. The authorities’ arbitrary criteria for justifying detentions were also criticized, with expulsions being based on subjective interpretations of tattoos which border agents said were gang symbols.

Are Venezuelan cartels invading the USA?

Although the growing attention given by the Trump administration may suggest that Tren de Aragua’s presence in the United States is growing, the evidence points to the opposite.

from the US Department of Homeland Security itself indicate that just 600 Venezuelans across the country were suspected of having some connection with the group — a number that corresponds to less than 0.09% of the approximately 700 thousand Venezuelans immigrated to North American soil.

According to the non-profit organization, which studies organized crime in Latin America, the group has lost power and relevance in recent times, with the arrests of several leaders fragmenting the gang.

“It now operates more like a dispersed franchise network than a cohesive organization, with branches in Peru, Colombia and Chile. In the United States, the crimes attributed to the group do not appear to be coordinated at any level”, says Insight Crime.

These conclusions are supported by three experts on crime in Venezuela. In an article for , Rebecca Hanson, David Smilde and Verónica Zubillaga write that TdA is a “relatively young organization, with relatively limited capacity and no historical political aspirations“, they say.

InSight Crime also refutes the idea that the gang uses tattoos to identify its members. “In fact, many gangs in the region that previously used tattoos to identify themselves, such as MS13, abandoned this practice precisely because they facilitate police identification. Furthermore, the fact that one or more members of a gang have the same tattoo does not necessarily mean that the gang uses it as an identification marker”, he explains.

So far, it is also not known how much or what type of drugs were transported on each vessel targeted by the American attacks in recent weeks, or whether they were even transporting drugs, with the United States not disclosing evidence of seizures.

Trump claimed the targeted boats were “loaded with bags of white powder, mostly fentanyl,” but the fentanyl is neither produced nor consumed in significant quantities in South America, according to Andrés Antillano, professor of criminology at the Central University of Venezuela.

Antillano says fentanyl is mainly produced in Mexico using chemical precursors imported from Asian countries, including China. “It’s nothing more than a flimsy alibi – a narrative to justify other agendas“, he says to The UN itself also classified the deaths of the ship’s crews as extrajudicial executions.

Does Maduro lead Venezuelan gangs?

The United States’ own intelligence information contradicts what Donald Trump claims.

The United States National Intelligence Council, consolidating information from 18 American intelligence agencies, concluded in a secret assessment carried out in April last year that the Venezuelan government is not orchestrating an invasion two United States through the Aragua Train gang.

The information was provided by , which also cites a former US intelligence officer who served in South America who said he was not aware of any proof that the TdA was led by Maduro.

Although the intelligence report indicates that there have already been low-level contacts with the Maduro government, the gang does not operate under the orders of the Venezuelan leader and there is no structural connection between the group and the government.

“The idea that Maduro is directing members of the Tren de Aragua and sending criminals to infiltrate the United States it’s absurd“, said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

Regarding the Cartel de los Soles, several Venezuelan experts claim that this cartel doesn’t even exist.

“The so-called Cartel de los Soles is not a group like the Medellín or Cali cartels, which control everything from production to transportation. It is more of a form of describe how Maduro stayed in power granting privileges to certain criminal groups”, explains José Luis Pérez Guadalupe, professor of criminology at the University of the Pacific, in Peru, and co-author of a recent book on organized crime in Venezuela.

In exchange for this support, Maduro allowed criminal organizations to control some regions and prisons, and “the army permeates all these power structures, because it operates throughout the country and facilitates the transit and export of drugs”, says the expert to .

However, this relationship has been shaken in recent times. InSight Crime states that “Maduro has dealt hard blows” against gangs, including Tren de Aragua. “He ordered a major operation that expelled the gang from their prison headquarters in September 2023 and his government has worked with partners in Colombia to arrest several important leaders in recent months,” the organization said.

“Furthermore, it is unlikely that Maduro would be able to control Tren de Aragua’s activities even if he wanted to. The gang’s leadership has been shaken and decision-making within the group became more horizontal“, argues the non-profit organization.

Antillano considers that the government figures involved in trafficking also did not operate as a cohesive unit and that they even competed with each other. “The idea of ​​a fully coordinated, vertical and consistent policy to flood the US with cocaine, as Trump has been claiming, It is completely unsustainable”, he finishes.