State media in Venezuela reported on Tuesday that dictator Nicolás Maduro had deployed 15,000 security operatives to the nation’s border with Colombia, allegedly to fight narco-terrorist organizations.
The deployment of security personnel under Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López occurs after President Donald Trump approved the deployment of American military assets to the southern Caribbean Sea this month to address drug trafficking in the region — much of which, the U.S. government affirms, occurs under the auspices of the Venezuelan government. Maduro himself, for which America is offering a $50 million bounty, is believed to be a senior leader in the Cartel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”), an intercontinental cocaine trafficking syndicate run by the Venezuelan military.
“The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters last week.
Maduro and his henchmen have aggressively denied any association with drug trafficking, refuting extensive evidence that it also benefits from links to narco-terror groups operative in Latin America such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Hezbollah. Maduro has instead accused the Trump administration of using drug trafficking as an excuse to plot an alleged coup d’etat against his illegitimate regime.
The Venezuelan state news network VTV described the deployment of the alleged 15,000 “security personnel” as part of a larger initiative the regime branded “Operation Catatumbo Lightning,” named after a unique natural phenomenon in the country responsible for a semi-permanent lightning storm over Lake Maracaibo. The troops would deploy, VTV reported, to Táchira and Zulia states in western Venezuela, near the border with Colombia.
“Today, we will reinforce with 15,000 ground forces on a front… that represents 851 kilometers [521 miles] of the 2,219 kilometers [1,379 miles] of border with Colombia,” Padrino announced. Those troops would join 60 “rapid response units” in Zulia and Táchira meant to combat and national security threats, as well as the deployment of naval fleets and drones.
Padrino’s confirmation of the deployment followed Maduro announcing the measure on Monday, asserting that the “personnel” in question were heavily armed men to reinforce the border.
“15,000 well-armed, well-trained, and well-prepared men and women will go to reinforce the binational zone,” Maduro announced on state television, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). The dictator emphasized that, according to him, Venezuela was “free of cocaine.”
“This is rapid planning since we know the territory already, we know the geographic conditions and we know the characteristics of the armed terrorist groups and drug traffickers who operate on the border and want to enter Venezuelan territory,” Padrino stated.
Omitted from Venezuelan state media coverage is the Maduro regime’s close relations with the aforementioned terrorist and drug traffickers operative in the region. The U.S. government and security experts have for years compiled evidence of the Maduro regime, and the prior Hugo Chávez regime, cultivating close ties to the FARC independently of FARC leaders openly embracing the regime in public. As recently as last week, Colombian media disclosed based on intelligence reports that the Venezuelan regime, through its Cartel de los Soles cocaine trafficking operation, maintained close ties to the FARC, the Colombian terrorists of the National Liberation Army (ELN), and Hezbollah.
The Trump administration deployed a fleet of warships to the southern Caribbean Sea this week to respond to the threats, reportedly featuring as many as 4,000 sailors and Marines prepared to intercept drug shipments in international waters. Trump’s Treasury Department also designated the Cartel de los Soles, believed to be led in part by Maduro, as a “specially designated global terrorist” (SDGT) entity in July.
On Sunday, the government of France — which maintains territories in the Caribbean region — followed suit, deploying naval assets and law enforcement specialists in drug trafficking to help curb what officials described as a surge in drug-related violence, particularly on the French island of Guadeloupe. Other governments — such as those of Ecuador, Argentina, and Paraguay — also designated the Cartel de los Soles a terrorist entity this month.
Maduro responded to the surge in foreign opposition to illicit drug trafficking in the region with vitriol, launching a wave of propaganda accusing the United States of plotting a coup and showcasing the might of the Venezuelan military.
On Tuesday, Maduro repeated that his regime was on high alert against the alleged “imperialist threats from the United States and its allies on the Venezuelan extreme right.”
“There is no rest. We are deployed. Nobody better touch Venezuelan territory,” the dictator warned, “because it is ours and we guarantee it. Every time we will move forward with more power and strength.
Maduro held “recruitment drives” to boost the numbers of his civilian militias in the past weekend, allegedly to prepare for an American invasion. Reports indicated that few Venezuelans turned out to participate in those events, leading Maduro to announce a second round of recruitment from August 29 to 31.
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