Cartel of the Suns

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (February 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Spanish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,084 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Cártel de los Soles]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Cártel de los Soles}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Cartel de los Soles

The group's name comes from the "sun" insignia of Venezuelan generals.
Years active	1993–present
Territory	Venezuela
Ethnicity	Venezuelan and Venezuelan-American (Florida and Texas operations)
Leader(s)	Nicolás Maduro (alleged) Mario Camara (alleged) Tareck El Aissami (suspected)
Activities	Drug trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering
Allies	Venezuela FARC[1] ELN FARC dissidents
Rivals	United States  Colombia

The Cartel of the Suns (Spanish: Cartel de los Soles) is a Venezuelan organization supposedly headed by high-ranking members of the Armed Forces of Venezuela who are involved in international drug trade.^[1] According to Héctor Landaeta, journalist and author of Chavismo, Narco-trafficking and the Military, the phenomenon began when Colombian drugs began to enter into Venezuela from corrupt border units and the "rot moved its way up the ranks."^[2]