The ‘Cartel of the Suns’: Why Nicolás Maduro faces charges in New York

After the shocking capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces, the president and his wife were rushed to New York and are expected to appear next week in a federal courtroom in Manhattan to face gun and narcotics trafficking charges.

While the counts against Maduro; his wife, Cilia Flores; and Maduro’s son were unveiled to the public on Jan. 3, they were filed by superseding indictment in a case that has been pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District for almost 15 years.

Maduro has been a named defendant in the prosecution since at least March 2020, according to court filings. U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York presides over the case.

You can read the full read the indictment against Maduro and his family here . Federal prosecutors have charged Maduro and five co-defendants with narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S. and conspiracy to possess machine guns and explosives.

For years, federal prosecutors have held that Venezuelan drug traffickers — in partnership with Maduro, a bevy of other top government officials and with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC — are using “cocaine as a weapon against America.”

“For more than 20 years, Maduro and a number of high-ranking colleagues allegedly conspired with the FARC, causing tons of cocaine to enter and devastate American communities,” then-Attorney General William Barr said in a March 2020 news release.

FILE PHOTO: Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro talks to the media next to his wife Cilia Flores after taking part in a voting drill, ahead of May 20 presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela May 6, 2018.REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo

This sprawling conspiracy has its tentacles spread throughout the highest levels of the Venezuelan government and military, prosecutors say — and is known as the Cartel de Los Soles, or the “Cartel of the Suns,” which refers to a sun insignia that’s affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking military officials.

One of the first suns to set was Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, a top general known as “El Pollo” (“The Chicken”) who was close with the late Hugo Chávez, and according to 2011 indictment against him filed in the Southern District, had been working with the cartel since at least 1999 in a scheme to “flood” the U.S. with cocaine.

This past June, Carvajal Barrios pleaded guilty to the same charges that Maduro faces now. The former general, who agreed to cooperate with investigators, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 60 years in prison on three of the four charges and a maximum life sentence on each count.

Carvajal Barrios’ sentencing was originally set for Oct. 29, 2025, but according to court filings was delayed because of defense attorneys’ objections to portions of the U.S. Probation Office’s draft presentencing report (in which probation officials provide a high-detailed analysis of a defendant’s background, health, remorse for their admitted criminal acts and other factors that judges consider at sentencing).

Hellerstein set the general’s sentencing for February 23.