The Nicolás Maduro regime has transformed Venezuela into a safe haven for transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and armed groups operating within its territory, allowing them to finance their operations through illicit activities. In exchange for protection money, state security forces provide a shield for these groups, strengthening their criminal structures, guaranteeing the flow of narcotics, and increasing pressure on the security and stability of the entire region.
The Cartel of the Suns, a network composed of high-ranking Venezuelan military officers, represents the ultimate form of state capture. Multiple regional governments, international think tanks, and defense experts contend that Nicolás Maduro leads this organization, which has placed the state apparatus at the service of organized crime.
Reports indicate that this criminal structure has gradually displaced Colombian guerrillas and TCOs from control of drug trafficking routes, using seizure operations as a facade to manage the transit of drugs to the United States, Brazil, and Europe. Over the past two decades, Venezuelan public officials, under this system, have directly taken control of cocaine trafficking and its final processing stages, integrating the state apparatus into the illicit economy from the operational levels up to the military hierarchies.
“The Maduro regime is experiencing a strategic vulnerability that contrasts with its past ability to project influence outside Venezuela,” Jorge Serrano, security and intelligence advisor to the Peruvian Congress, told Diálogo. “Not even the support of the Tren de Aragua, the Cartel of the Suns, its links with Colombian dissidents, or its collaboration with Hezbollah and Iran allow it to maintain an offensive external posture today.”
The Colombia-Venezuela border: A corridor for regional crime
For years, Colombian guerrilla groups and TCOs have established land, river, air, and sea routes to send cocaine to major markets. However, increased interdiction in Colombia and Central America, coupled with pressure from Washington, rendered traditional routes less profitable. As a result, trafficking gradually shifted its focus to Venezuela, where it found political support and institutional protection, strengthening the Cartel of the Suns, Spanish think tank Elcano Institute indicates in a report.
The Colombia-Venezuela border has become an epicenter of organized crime, where illicit capital sustains local economies and facilitates the expansion of criminal networks. Colombian drug traffickers inherited routes after the peace process, while the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) maintain their influence thanks to operational cooperation with the Cartel of the Suns. This corridor has become a strategic hub for drug trafficking and other illicit economies.
Concurrently, the main Mexican drug trafficking networks have begun to reduce their physical presence in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, as the Maduro regime tightens its control over local criminal structures to ensure its own survival, InSight Crime indicated in a recent report.
“For years, the Maduro regime and the Cartel of the Suns functioned as the hub that facilitated the flow of cocaine to various markets, allowing dissidents and other groups to operate widely,” Serrano said. “Today, the erosion of the state apparatus and political changes have reduced that capacity, limiting room for maneuver of the organizations that depended on that corridor.”
Faced with this new scenario, TCOs have had to rethink their distribution channels and drug trafficking strategies. “The growing pressure on these organizations and the degradation of their logistical structures are forcing them to adapt quickly to maintain their operations, facing an increasingly restrictive and monitored environment,” Serrano added.
Humanitarian crisis
Venezuela is grappling with an unprecedented political and socioeconomic crisis, marked by hyperinflation, severe poverty, and state repression. The collapse of basic services has forced nearly 8 million Venezuelans to leave the country, according to Crisis Group, increasing migratory pressure and regional instability.
In the Catatumbo region, located on the Colombia-Venezuela border, clashes between the ELN and FARC dissidents have caused mass displacement. Human Rights Watch (HRW) documents that more than 56,000 people have been forced to leave their homes due to fighting and abuses, marking one of the largest displacements in Colombia in decades.
Catatumbo remains a strategic enclave for drug production and trafficking. According to HRW, the ELN has enjoyed the complicity of Venezuelan security forces for years. Armed groups resort to recruiting minors and imposing social control to consolidate their territorial dominance on both sides of the border.
The increase in cocaine production and consumption in Colombia and Peru is forcing criminal groups to seek new trafficking routes. With traditional corridors monitored, they are actively exploring alternatives through Paraguay, Chile, and Brazil, adapting their mode of operation, Serrano says.
Currently, the subversive groups operating in the mountains between Venezuela and Colombia no longer have a strategic advantage. According to Serrano, “the Colombian guerrillas will not be able to sustain the Venezuelan regime and, if it falls, they will also lose their refuge and protection in Venezuelan territory, leaving them completely unanchored.”
The international projection of the Tren de Aragua
According to Serrano, the elimination of a leader does not mean the disappearance of the organization. He states that the Tren de Aragua, which has been backed and enabled by the Maduro regime, already operates across Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Central America, and Spain. These operations utilize money laundering platforms, controlled territories, and alliances with local gangs to ensure the continuity of its transnational operations.
Although the loss of the command center in Caracas would be a strategic blow, activities such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and extortion will persist as long as there are local networks supporting these operations. Their continuity will depend on the effectiveness of national and international strategies to dismantle and neutralize their links, but for now they maintain a solid transnational operational capacity.
The regional response to the threat
Neighboring countries and regional allies have intensified their efforts to contain the spread of organized crime and terrorism originating in Venezuela, moving beyond simple condemnations to official designation and action.
A significant coordinated regional response has been the formal classification of the Cartel of the Suns as a terrorist entity, allowing for stronger legal and military action. Several key partners, including the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States have formally designated the Cartel of the Suns as a transnational criminal and terrorist organization. This step is crucial as it facilitates sanctions and military cooperation, treating the threat as an assault on democracy and territorial integrity.
In the Caribbean, joint patrols with the United States and other regional partners have been intensified to stem the flow of drugs and weapons emanating from Venezuela. The U.S. Coast Guard reported in late August 2025 that, as part of continuous counternarcotics operations, crews had seized a record-breaking 34 metric tons of illicit narcotics, the vast majority of which originated in Venezuelan waters.
“When the command center in Caracas falls, the strategy must focus on dismantling the peripheral nodes that support the Cartel of the Suns and the Tren de Aragua,” Serrano concluded. “Regional coordination is necessary to close alternative routes and strengthen the prosecution of these organizations. Countries that do not cooperate could become hotbeds of instability, making it easier for criminal structures to maintain their influence and transnational operations.”
Venezuela, under the Maduro regime, has become the central catalyst for the expansion of regional and international organized crime, creating a challenge that transcends borders and requires coordinated and forceful responses.
