Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said that US claims of the alleged existence of a drug trafficking organization called “Cartel of the Suns” in Venezuela are a “far-right excuse to overthrow governments that don’t obey.”
In multiple posts on social media platform X, Petro said that drug trafficking between Colombia and Venezuela is being coordinated by a drug trafficking organization called the Junta del Narcotrafico.
Those who control cocaine trafficking in Venezuela are the same people who control cocaine trafficking in Catatumbo, the plains, and the Bogotá savannah. They call themselves the Junta del Narcotrafico, and the US government and European intelligence agencies have had this information for some time.
President Gustavo Petro
According to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, which would have trafficked tons of cocaine to the United States.
Petro said that “the transit of Colombian cocaine through Venezuela is controlled by the Junta del Narcotrafico, whose leaders reside in Europe and the Middle East.”
US authorities claimed to have dismantled this “super cartel” after the arrest of its “boss of bosses,” Julio Lozano, in 2012.
Despite his prominent role in the global drug trade, Lozano was released from his US prison in 2016 and his since obtained a residential visa in the United Arab Emirates.
Wiretaps revealed in 2021 that Lozano teamed up with paramilitary group EGC to resume control over Bogota and disputed emerald mines in the Boyaca provinces.
Lozano’s drug trafficking organization has longstanding ties to Colombia’s security forces and has apparently infiltrated the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office.
The prosecution and the National Police have yet to admit the resurgence of the Junta and its alleged involvement in at least a dozen assassinations of emerald mining executives and former Junta bosses in Bogota and the surrounding Cundinamarca province.
Petro said that he proposed to both Venezuelan and US authorities to shut down the Junta’s operations through multilateral cooperation.
