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….