Posted on 06 Jan 2026

If the objective of the US intervention in Venezuela was to reduce the threat posed by organized crime, major challenges still lie ahead. While Operation Absolute Resolve may have successfully removed President Nicolás Maduro from power, the risks of violent destabilization in a country marked by entrenched corruption, the politicization of state security forces and numerous criminal and armed actors are very high. As evidenced by failures of the ‘kingpin strategy’ elsewhere in the Americas, toppling the Venezuelan president through methods widely deemed as illegal may create opportunities for criminal armed groups to scramble for control of the country’s illicit markets. This would generate further instability and violence in the region, fuelling the kinds of repressive agendas increasingly seen across Latin America.

State-embedded criminal actors    

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly framed the 3 January operation as a law-enforcement action aimed at arresting Maduro on drug-trafficking and weapons-related charges, rather than as a declaration of war or a regime change exercise. Indeed, upon his arrival in the US, Maduro was first taken to the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration. At his arraignment in a New York court on 5 January, he and his wife pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges and attempted to challenge being brought to the US against their will. Maduro’s second hearing is scheduled for 17 March, but, as with other high-profile cases of Latin American criminals prosecuted in the US, superseding indictments may well emerge in the next months, potentially introducing new charges or defendants.

The justification for the operation used by the Trump administration is that Venezuela is a hub for drug trafficking, which poses a threat to the health and security of American citizens, and that Maduro is implicated in this. This, however, is contested by some who argue that Washington’s framing of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) as a cohesive criminal organization composed of Venezuela’s top brass, with Maduro at its apex, is unsubstantiated. Indeed, the US Department of Justice has already nuanced its claim.

That said, there are strong indications that segments of the Venezuelan state apparatus are deeply engaged in criminal activities. This is consistent with the findings of the latest edition of the Global Organized Crime Index, which ranks Venezuela among the top 10 per cent of countries in the world in terms of the influence of state-embedded criminal actors.

What happens next in Venezuela is unclear, despite Trump’s assertion that the US will ‘run Venezuela until there is a safe, proper, and judicious transition’. If the US wants to root out the state-embedded actors who have protected and benefited from illicit economies under the Maduro regime, it will not only have to indict the ousted president, but work towards restoring the rule of law.

After more than two decades of governance under the Chavista regime, the country’s political-criminal ecosystem is deeply entrenched in state structures. Cooperation between the state and criminal actors is choreographed around protection arrangements, trafficking corridors and money-laundering circuits. Any changes to this system are therefore likely to disrupt these networks. If the dynamics around the state-embedded actors who control the criminal economies are modified, but global demand for cocaine and gold prices remain high, we should expect violent mafia groups to fill the void.

And there is likely to be huge resistance from those – not least among the security forces and the ruling party – who might have a lot to lose, including key Chavistas figures who remain in power, such as interior relations minister Diosdado Cabello, also accused in the Maduro indictment. Maduro was able to negotiate among the various factions in Venezuela’s ruling party, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), enabling a fragile yet operational equilibrium. The appointment of a new president could disrupt this delicate arrangement, which includes criminal and rebel organizations, with consequences for criminal economies and the alliances that control them.

The hazards ahead

In this moment of heightened uncertainty, and without a clear path to transition, certain political, economic or armed actors may seek to assert their position in Venezuela’s criminal markets. This scenario would not be limited to domestic stakeholders. Foreign criminal and armed groups, particularly from Colombia and Brazil, may well also attempt to exploit the situation and secure access to trafficking routes, logistical infrastructure or protection mechanisms.

One such threat is the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), an armed group that operates in Colombia and Venezuela, and is involved in cross-border cocaine trafficking, illegal gold mining and extortion. Others include FARC dissident groups operating in the Colombia and Venezuela border region, and the Tren de Aragua, another Venezuelan criminal group, which operates transnationally across South America.

The crisis in Venezuela may also present an opportunity for drug-trafficking groups to take advantage of the illicit gold trade. With the dramatic rise in international gold prices over the past five years, drug cartels have moved into controlling illicit gold mining sites across the Amazon Basin, including in the Orinoco mining arc in Venezuela. Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital has already developed close links with the Tren de Aragua in the Brazil–Venezuela border region of Roraima, particularly for weapon trafficking and to establish control over illicit gold mining sites on the Brazilian side of the border. The prospect of expanding into Venezuela may prove tempting to the Brazilian group in the current context. Meanwhile, another Brazilian criminal organization, the Comando Vermelho, has become an ascendant force in cocaine trafficking throughout the Amazon. This group may also take advantage of the current crisis to expand its footprint into the Venezuelan Amazon region.

Besides criminal competition over cocaine and gold, there is also the risk of long-term confrontation with the Bolivarian Militias, a force of civilian volunteers created by former president Hugo Chávez to defend the Chavista revolution. The ELN has said that it is willing to support Maduro’s regime along with members of the military loyal to figures in power. This could pose a serious threat to security, with criminal proceeds funding their fight. The risk is compounded by the availability of weapons. Venezuela is a source and transit country for firearms in the region, and this activity is likely to intensify if effective control mechanisms are not put in place.

Particular attention should also be paid to the risks associated with illicit firearm trafficking from Venezuelan stockpiles. Estimates suggest that civilian firearm ownership alone accounts for between 1.6 and 4.1 million weapons. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of military-grade weapons held within the stockpiles of the armed forces, pro-government militias and guerrilla groups.

Although Venezuelan actors play a role in cocaine trafficking, the primary destination is Europe, and not the US. What is more, cocaine trafficking in the Caribbean relies on a wide range of transport methods, including containerized shipping, fishing vessels, bulk carriers, semi-submersibles, go-fast boats and recreational vessels, all of which are complemented by land and air routes. Cocaine trafficking through Venezuela is therefore likely to face only some disruption by Operation Absolute Resolve. Given the US’s heightened scrutiny of Colombia’s Caribbean and Pacific corridors, new trafficking routes may open up through Ecuador, and especially Peru, where rising cocaine production levels and institutional fragility may increase the country’s strategic relevance within regional trafficking networks.

Any escalation of violence in Venezuela and instability along the Colombia–Venezuela border may well also trigger renewed flows of refugees and migrants. These dynamics may be exploited by organized criminal groups that operate human smuggling and trafficking networks through Colombia and routinely extort migrants. It is worth noting that the Colombian military has already been deployed to the border to mitigate where possible.

More broadly, the intervention in Venezuela raises questions about how Washington will approach other drug-producing countries, such as Colombia, which will hold an election in May, and with whom tensions between President Trump and President Petro are escalating, as well as Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, and how it might pursue ‘narco-terrorists’ – to use the US administration’s terminology – in Mexico.

Amid fears of further US interventions in the region, the Americas may witness a renewed wave of hardline, security-driven responses to organized crime, with potential windfalls for criminal actors but significant costs in terms of governance, human rights and regional stability.

Democracy as an inoculator

The Trump administration’s stated aim for taking out Maduro was to deal with the impact of organized crime, particularly the cocaine industry, on the US. However, the illicit economy is so deeply layered in Venezuela that removing the purported kingpin is likely to prove insufficient. Wider democratizing reforms will be necessary to dismantle the complex and extensive architecture that supports Venezuela’s criminal economies, rather than just removing the alleged head of a state-embedded cartel. In fact, there is a risk that a political crisis could have the counter-effect of intensifying regional illicit activities.

As demonstrated by the Global Organized Crime Index, authoritarian regimes tend to take over criminal economies rather than abolish them. Therefore, if the United States wants to uproot Venezuela’s criminalized state, fundamental reforms and a genuine transition led by Venezuelan citizens to democracy, the rule of law and respect for rights will be essential. Long-term democratization, and not just a short-term military operation, are required to inoculate Venezuela and the wider region against organized crime.