The big lie of defining Venezuela as a narco-state

Caracas, August 29 - During my tenure as Director of UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, I visited Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil, but I never went to Venezuela. Simply put, there was no need.

The cooperation of the Venezuelan government in the fight against drug trafficking was among the best in South America, comparable only to Cuba’s impeccable record.

This fact, in Trump’s delusional narrative of “Venezuela as a narco-state,” sounds like a geopolitically motivated slander. But the data, published in the 2025 World Drug Report by the organization I had the honor to lead, tells a different story from that spread by the Trump administration.

A story that dismantles piece by piece the geopolitical fabric built around the “Cartel of the Suns,” an entity as legendary as the Loch Ness Monster, but used to justify sanctions, embargoes, and threats of military intervention against a country that, coincidentally, sits atop one of the world’s largest oil reserves. According to UNODC: Venezuela is an insignificant country on the drug trafficking map. The 2025 UNODC report is very clear, which should shame those who have built a rhetoric demonizing Venezuela.

The report makes only a minimal and brief mention of Venezuela, stating that a tiny fraction of Colombian drug production transits through the country en route to the United States and Europe. According to the UN, Venezuela has solidified as a drug-free territory of coca leaf, marijuana, and similar products, as well as the absence of international criminal cartels.

The document has merely confirmed the previous 30 annual reports, which do not speak of Venezuelan drug trafficking because it simply doesn’t exist. Only 5% of Colombian drugs pass through Venezuela. To put this into perspective: in 2018, while 210 tons of cocaine transited through Venezuela, Colombia produced or marketed 2,370 tons (ten times more), and Guatemala, 1,400 tons; yes, you read that right: Guatemala is a drug corridor seven times more significant than the supposed “Bolivarian narco-state.”

But no one talks about it because Guatemala produces only 0.01% of the world's total of the only drug that interests Trump: oil. The Hollywood-style Fictional Suns Cartel: A Hollywood-style Fiction The “Cartel of the Suns” is a creation of Trump’s imagination. It’s supposedly led by the Venezuelan president, but it’s not mentioned in the main drug agency’s report or in documents from any European agency or almost any other law enforcement agency worldwide. Not even a footnote.

An overwhelming silence that should make anyone with even a shred of critical thinking reflect. How can such a powerful criminal organization, deserving a reward of $50 million, be completely ignored by those working in the drug enforcement field? In other words, what is sold as a Netflix-style super cartel is actually just petty crimes found in every country, including the United States, where nearly 100,000 people die each year from opioid overdoses that have nothing to do with Venezuela but are linked to American pharmaceutical giants.

Ecuador: The real center nobody wants to see

While Washington stirs the Venezuela issue, the real drug trafficking hubs thrive almost undisturbed. In Ecuador, for instance, 57% of banana containers leaving Guayaquil carry cocaine to Belgium.

European authorities seized 13 tons of cocaine from a Spanish ship originating from Ecuadorian ports, controlled by companies protected by Ecuadorian government officials. The European Union published a detailed report on the ports of Guayaquil, describing how “Colombian, Mexican, and Albanian mafias operate extensively in Ecuador.” The homicide rate in Ecuador skyrocketed from 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to 45.7 in 2023.

But little is said about Ecuador. Perhaps because Ecuador produces only 0.5% of the world’s oil and its government does not have the bad habit of challenging U.S. dominance in Latin America?

The true drug routes: geography vs. propaganda

During my years at UNODC, one of the most important lessons I learned was that geography does not lie. Drug routes follow a precise logic: proximity to production centers, ease of transport, corruption of local authorities, and presence of established criminal networks. Venezuela does not meet any of these criteria.

Colombia produces over 70% of the world’s cocaine. Peru and Bolivia account for most of the remaining 30%. The logical routes to reach U.S. and European markets go through the Pacific towards Asia, via the Caribbean eastward towards Europe, and overland through Central America to the United States. Venezuela, bordering the South Atlantic, is geographically disadvantaged for these three main routes. Criminal logistics renders Venezuela an irrelevant player in the global narcotraffic scene.

Cuba: The shameful example

Geography doesn’t lie, indeed, but politics can override it. Today, Cuba continues to represent the model for drug cooperation in the Caribbean. An island close to Florida’s coast, theoretically perfect for transit to the U.S., but in practice, not used for drug trafficking. I have repeatedly observed the admiration of DEA and FBI agents for the strict anti-drug policies of the Cuban communists.

Venezuelan chavismo has followed the Cuban model in the fight against drugs, pioneered by Fidel Castro himself: “international cooperation, territorial control, and repression of criminal activity.”

Neither Venezuela nor Cuba has ever had large cultivated areas of coca under the control of major criminals.

The European Union has no particular oil interests in Venezuela, but it does have a clear interest in combating drug trafficking that affects its cities. It published the European Drug Report 2025. This document, based on real data and not geopolitical illusions, does not even once mention Venezuela as a route for international drug trafficking. That is the difference between an honest analysis and a false, insulting narrative. Europe needs reliable data to protect its citizens from drugs, which is why it produces accurate reports.

The United States needs to justify its oil policies, which is why it produces propaganda disguised as intelligence services. According to the European report, cocaine is the second most consumed drug in the 27 EU countries, but the main sources are clearly identified: Colombia for production, Central America for distribution, and West Africa with different routes for distribution. Venezuela and Cuba simply do not appear. Yet, Venezuela is systematically demonized, contravening any principle of truth.

Former FBI Director James Comey explained in his memoirs after resigning that behind U.S. policies toward Venezuela lies an undisclosed motivation: Trump told him that Maduro’s government was “a government sitting on a mountain of oil that we have to buy.”

So, it’s not about drugs, crime, or national security. It’s about oil that it would be better not to pay for.

Thus, Donald Trump would deserve an international reward for a very specific crime: “systematic slander against a sovereign state to seize its oil resources.”

Note: The author Pino Arlacchi is Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNODC, the UN’s drug and crime program. (Text and photo: Cubadebate)