The US brings in a navy fleet to Venezuela's coast — but does the Suns cartel exist?

The US is sending ships into the waters off Venezuela as part of an effort to curb drug trafficking from Latin America.

Three amphibious assault vessels are due to reach the region by next week, according to an American defence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The confirmation of the deployment comes a week after US President Donald Trump confirmed the move, which will see the American military attempt to stop cartels he blames for the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the US.

One of the cartels Trump thinks is responsible is the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), a group his administration has designated as a terrorist organisation, despite doubts that it even exists.

What is the Cartel of the Suns?

In July, the Trump administration suggested that the Cartel of the Suns was led by the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and was backed by other “other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals”.

The US government claimed the so-called cartel supports criminal groups such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel by weaponising drug trafficking against the US.

Both Venezuela and its neighbour Colombia insist that the group has no basis in reality, while Washington’s allies in the region, including Argentina and Paraguay, have fallen behind Trump’s position.

Experts say that there is no evidence of a group of that name with a defined hierarchy, while an anti-drug report from the US State Department in March did not mention it by name.

Insight Crime, a think tank that specialises in corruption in the Americas, said earlier this month that the US’ sanctions against the Cartel of the Suns were misdirected.

“The US government’s new sanctions against Venezuela’s so-called 'Cartel of the Suns' incorrectly portray it as a hierarchical, ideologically driven drug trafficking organisation rather than a profit-based system of generalised corruption involving high-ranking military figures,” it wrote.

The name, which refers to the suns depicted on Venezuelan military uniforms, was invented by the Venezuelan media after two generals were found to have been involved in drug trafficking in the early 1990s, according to the think tank.

US and Venezuela’s tense relationship

The relationship between Washington and Caracas has long been strained, with US officials decrying what they called undemocratic elections last year, which gave Maduro a third presidential term.

The US also strongly condemned the Venezuelan government’s crackdown on protesters after the elections. Several thousand demonstrators were jailed after the disputed vote last July.

The Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whose ally Edmundo González is recognised by the US as the winner of the 2024 election, has expressed her support for Washington's latest policies regarding Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Maduro and his supporters have stoked fears about a potential US invasion, urging people to enlist in a volunteer militia designed to help the army against external attacks.