Ismael García asked the legitimate National Assembly to declare the Cartel de los Soles a terrorist organization

Deputy Ismael García, a member of the Voluntad Popular (VP) caucus in the legitimate National Assembly, asked the Parliament in plenary session on Tuesday to formally declare the Cartel de los Soles a terrorist organization.

During his speech in the debate of the delegated committee, García argued that the struggle in Venezuela is not only against a dictatorship, but against a criminal network linked to drug trafficking and international terrorism.

“The Cartel de los Soles is an absolutely perverse and harmful structure that operates from the highest levels of power, led by Nicolás Maduro and sustained by military officers and civilians,” the VP lawmaker said.

He added that this network controls not only drug trafficking, but also illegal activities related to gold, which in his view makes the regime “an organized mafia with international reach.”

García recalled that in 2005 he began to denounce, with evidence presented in the Parliament itself, the existence of the cartel, pointing to senior officials such as Diosdado Cabello, Néstor Reverol, Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal and Henry Rangel Silva as key pieces of the structure.

“We managed to prove before the Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern District of Florida and of New York direct drug trafficking operations that even departed from the presidential ramp at Maiquetía,” he said, alluding to a case of 5,600 kilos of cocaine transported on an Aeropostal plane.

The VP deputy also recalled his complaints about links between the Cartel de los Soles and organizations such as the FARC and the ELN in border areas, as well as the investigations that revealed money laundering networks in Panama, Spain and the United States tied to chavista leaders.

“We are not facing a conventional dictatorship, but drug traffickers installed in power, responsible for having looted the country and for trafficking more than 450 tons of drugs a year from Venezuela,” he said.

In his formal proposal, García urged the Parliament to join the recognition that governments, parliaments and international bodies have already made of the existence of the Cartel de los Soles.

“It is time to speak out clearly and firmly to support the fight against drug trafficking and to reaffirm the investigations that were promoted from this Parliament,” he stressed.

He concluded his speech with a message of confidence in the legislative work: “I leave this proposal on the table. Venezuela will soon be free. Long live a free Venezuela.”