Last week, the Trump Administration in the US initiated a bold move to counter the growing influx of drugs emanating from Colombia, Peru and Bolivar and moving to the US through the Caribbean Sea. In early June, Guyana was brought under the microscope when the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 10 individuals, including four Guyanese: Senior Superintendent Himnauth Sawh, Paul Daby Jr, Mark Cromwell and Randolph Duncan after they were tied to 4.4 tonnes of cocaine seized at a Region One location. The Police Supt had facilitated the transport of drugs through the region, and on several other occasions, it was revealed, even submarines were used to move the product to US and European markets.
Similar sanctions a year ago had been imposed on prominent businessman Nazar “Shell” Mohamed, his son Azruddin Mohamed, who is now the leader of the political party WIN contesting the Sept 1 elections, and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mae Thomas. They were fingered as being involved in gold smuggling out of Guyana, but this included sanctioned gold from Venezuela that was smuggled from that country along the same routes as drugs shipped by the Latin American drug cartels.
The US will now be deploying some 4500 additional troops in the Southern Caribbean Sea in a new military push against the cartels. The move, which includes air and naval forces, marks one of the most significant shows of force in the Region in recent years and underscores Washington’s growing concern over the national security threat posed by transnational narcotics networks. The deployment reflects a broader shift in American counternarcotics strategy, one that increasingly treats major drug cartels not just as criminal enterprises, but as global terrorist organisations.
In February, the Trump Administration formally designated Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua criminal syndicate as global terrorist organisations. The classification grants US agencies broader powers to target their financial networks, intercept communications, and, critically, authorise the use of military assets against them.
Speaking at a recent briefing, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasised that these groups – some of which operate in international waters and airspace – pose a direct threat to American lives and security. “There are designated narco-terrorist groups operating in the region, some of them utilising international airspace and international waters to transit poison into the United States, and those groups will be confronted,” he stated. “The President’s made that clear from the time he operated.”
Rubio singled out Venezuela’s so-called Cartel of the Suns (Cartel de los Soles), describing it not as a legitimate governing authority but as “a criminal organisation masquerading as a Government”.
He asserted that the Nicolás Maduro regime has effectively turned the Venezuelan state into a criminal enterprise, using its control of national territory to facilitate illicit trafficking and threaten regional stability.
“The Maduro regime is not a Government. We’ve never recognised them as such. They are a criminal enterprise that basically has taken control of the national territory of a country,” Rubio said. “By the way, they are also threatening US oil companies that are operating lawfully in Guyana. So, the President’s been very firm – anything that’s a threat to the national security of the United States, he’s going to confront.”
The Pentagon’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), headquartered in Miami, is expected to coordinate the mission. SOUTHCOM has a long history of counternarcotics operations in Latin America, working closely with the US Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and allied navies in the Caribbean and South America.
The deployment comes amid heightened tensions with Venezuela, whose government, under President Maduro, has been accused by US officials of harbouring and profiting from drug trafficking networks. In 2020, the Department of Justice indicted Maduro and several senior officials on narco-terrorism charges, alleging that they conspired with the FARC rebel group to “flood the United States with cocaine.” A bounty on Maduro was doubled to US$50 million.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has affirmed that our government “welcomes (the US strategy) because we work in collaboration with them to stop this”.
