Thinking…

How does one combat a criminal organization that happens to be the government of a sovereign nation?

One method is to put a bounty on that nation’s head of state, capture him, and extradite him for a criminal trial: this is the strategy the United States employed against Nicholas Maduro on January 3rd, 2026.

Nicholas Maduro ran the Cartel de los Soles, the criminal organization that permeated the Venezuelan government. It used revenue from the socialized oil industry to fund its criminal activities and control Venezuela. Supposedly, Trump captured Maduro to stop the cartel’s drug activity from harming the U.S.

That being the case, how effective was the move in weaking the cartel?

Before finding out, the relationship between the Cartel de los Soles and the Venezuelan government has to be cleared up: they’re the same thing. The members of the Cartel de los Soles are Venezuelan government and military officials who turned to illicit activity for income, especially as socialism destroyed the Venezuelan economy after Hugo Chavez took power. The term “Cartel de los Soles” is just the name given them in government documents (in fact, it was used in the Department of Justice’s tipline email).

Now, some would say the Cartel de los Soles isn’t real. The New York Times gleefully pointed out that in the more recent indictment of Maduro, the term “Cartel de los Soles” wasn’t used. Disputing the New York times are the nations of Argentina, Ecuador, and Paraguay, all of whom have declared the Cartel de los Soles a terrorist organization. In light of this, I think it’s fair to ignore the New York Times like we usually do.

The government of Venezuela is essentially a big criminal organization. So what?

Because they’re the same thing, what weakens the Venezuelan government weakens the Cartel de los Soles.

Was the government weakened?

Absolutely. Capturing Maduro allowed the U.S. to take control of the Venezuelan oil industry. This took away the government’s financial life support and derailed their control over Venezuela. The government had been surviving off the oil industry since Hugo Chavez nationalized it in his socialist takeover. Since oil funded the Venezuelan government, it funded the Cartel de los Soles.

When Trump started seizing Venezuela’s oil tankers (especially ones loaded with oil that was paying back debts to China), the cartel started having issues.

The loss of oil revenue crippled the cartel financially, which can be seen in the effect it had on Venezuela’s socialist welfare programs. For example, take the Venezuelan healthcare system. A doctor in Caracas revealed that since Maduro’s capture, “patients are required to provide their own materials for surgeries and treatments in public hospitals, even though care is guaranteed to be free at the point of use under the country’s constitution.” In response, the Cartel had to move money around. Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez promised that “every dollar that enters Venezuela from our oil and gas industry will be allocated to meeting the health needs of the Venezuelan people.” Cash that used to line the pockets of cartel members had to be redirected to the Venezuelan people.

The Cartel de los Soles also suffered a power shift from the government to private enterprise. Capturing Maduro forced the denationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry. Previously, the industry was owned and operated by the government. Since Maduro’s capture, the Venezuelan government revised their Hydrocarbons Law to give greater freedom to private enterprise. By capturing Maduro, the U.S. forced the Cartel de los Soles to give up its key means of control, toppling their power over Venezuela.

How effective was capturing Maduro in weaking the Cartel de los Soles?

The Cartel de los Soles was crippled because it was forced to hand over its cash cow to private enterprise. They lost the revenue source that funded their socialist regime, and they lost it in a manner that took power from them and gave it to private companies.

Was the Cartel de los Soles weakened to the point of extinction? Of course not. But capturing Maduro did a number on the cartel, and they’ll be licking their wounds for years to come.