Three US Aegis guided-missile destroyers have been dispatched to waters off the coast of Venezuela, as part of what the Trump administration calls an effort to counter threats from Latin American drug cartels. The mobilization follows Washington’s decision to increase the bounty for the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, doubling it to an unprecedented $50 million. Last week, US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the seizure of assets worth $700 million from the Venezuelan head of state.
In response to the increased US military presence in the Caribbean, President Maduro announced plans to mobilize 4.5 million members of the territorial militia across the country. “Rifles and missiles for the rural forces! To defend Venezuela’s territory, sovereignty and peace,” he proclaimed. (Latin America Reports)
The US Justice Department indicted Maduro in 2020 as the supposed kingpin of the “Cartel of the Suns,” and has since asserted his ties to the Tren de Aragua gang network, as well as Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. This year, the US State Department classified both the Cartel of the Suns and Tren de Aragua as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
In June, Hugo Carvajal, former head of Venezuelan military intelligence, was convicted on drug trafficking charges after being arrested in Madrid and put on trial in the US. Carvajal had been a feared spymaster who went by the name “El Pollo” (The Chicken), but fled Venezuela in 2019 after calling on the army to back an opposition candidate and overthrow Maduro. (BBC News, NACLA Report)
In March, the US tightened sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector.
Photo: US Navy via Latin America Reports
