The European Parliament voted Thursday to urge the European Union to add Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles to its list of designated terrorist organizations, with Spanish lawmaker Alma Ezcurra declaring that, through the organization, President Nicolás Maduro had achieved what drug lord Pablo Escobar once only imagined.
"What Pablo Escobar once dreamed of, Maduro has achieved: he controls a loyal army, has embassies in our capitals, and sits in the United Nations," Ezcurra told fellow members during debate on the resolution. "Maduro is a narco, yes, but with state power, and he uses terror to subjugate his people with the complicity of governments and leaders in Europe."
