US Justice Department drops key ‘Cartel de los Soles’ claim in revised Maduro indictment

The United States Justice Department has quietly backed away from one of its most controversial assertions against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, removing language from a revised indictment that described him as the leader of a formal drug cartel known as the Cartel de los Soles.

The changes were made in an updated indictment unsealed on January 3, the same day US forces carried out a military operation in Caracas and brought Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores to the United States to face criminal charges. Prosecutors dropped repeated references to Maduro’s alleged leadership of a structured criminal organisation, instead characterising the so-called cartel as part of a broader system of corruption and patronage within Venezuela’s political and military elite.

In the earlier 2020 indictment, prosecutors accused Maduro of helping to manage and ultimately lead the Cartel de los Soles, using it to facilitate drug shipments into the United States. That language was cited by officials in the Trump administration and echoed in designations by the US Treasury and State Department, which in 2025 labelled the cartel a terrorist organisation.

The revised indictment mentions the term just twice and frames it not as a discrete organisation but as a “clientelism system” or “culture of corruption” in which drug money enriched civil and military officials operating under a loose hierarchy often referred to by the cartel name. Legal experts and scholars have long challenged the existence of the Cartel de los Soles as a coherent criminal network, noting that it originated in Venezuelan media slang in the 1990s to describe corrupt officials rather than a formal cartel entity.

Despite the shift in language, the Justice Department continues to allege that Maduro and his associates turned Venezuela into a narco-state, protecting and facilitating large-scale cocaine shipments bound for the United States and working with designated foreign terrorist organisations and criminal groups.

Maduro has denied the charges and maintains he is Venezuela’s legitimate leader. His case is now being heard in a federal court in New York, where he has pleaded not guilty, and legal debates over evidence and jurisdiction are expected to shape proceedings in the months ahead.