The US Justice Department has quietly scaled back its indictment of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, retreating from a central Trump-era claim that he led a drug cartel.
The original accusation, included in a 2020 grand jury indictment, portrayed the Cartel de los Soles as an organized criminal group allegedly led by Maduro and engaged in large-scale cocaine trafficking.
The claim became a central pillar of Washington’s pressure campaign against Caracas and was repeatedly cited to justify escalating sanctions and military operations.
In July 2025, the US Treasury Department designated the so-called cartel as a terrorist organization, a move later backed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien.