A major pillar of the Trump administration's justification for unprecedented military intervention in Venezuela, the existence of a structured drug trafficking cartel known as the Cartel de los Soles, has been publicly undermined by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).
US prosecutors have rewritten key language in the superseding federal indictment against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros and other officials, effectively abandoning the claim that Cartel de los Soles is a distinct organised criminal cartel. The adjusted document now describes the phrase as a reference to a loose patronage system of corrupt officials rather than a formal drug cartel.
