(Reuters) -The United States on Friday designated a group it said is tied to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for allegedly supporting the Tren de Aragua gang and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, which the U.S. has named so-called foreign terrorist organizations.
U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said in a post on X, which it later deleted, that it would use “all the resources at our disposal to prevent Maduro from continuing to profit from destroying American lives and destabilizing our hemisphere.”
The U.S. has alleged that the group, known as the Cartel de Los Soles, is made up of high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Maduro. The U.S. in 2020 had already charged Maduro and his allies with drug trafficking.
Venezuela’s communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Maduro has repeatedly rejected the U.S. allegations as a smear campaign and said the U.S. must do more to reduce drug consumption.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the post, the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs accused Maduro, whom the office called a “dictator,” of leading the group to traffic narcotics into the U.S.
The United States has previously argued that Maduro’s election win last year was illegitimate and has an order out for his capture.
Maduro, president since 2013, was declared the winner of the country’s July 2024 election by both Venezuela’s electoral authority and top court, though detailed tallies confirming his victory have never been published.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry, Julia Symmes Cobb and Vivian Sequera; Editing by Sarah Morland)
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