• Venezuela serves as transit country, not production hub for cocaine entering United States
• Colombia produces 84% of U.S. cocaine seizures, Mexico controls fentanyl trade
• Analysts predict violence and instability could increase without reducing drug flows

WASHINGTON (TDR) — Despite President Donald Trump‘s claims that capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would strike a major blow against drug trafficking, experts warn that cocaine and fentanyl flows from Colombia and Mexico will continue regardless of developments in Venezuela.

The assessment challenges the Trump administration’s justification for Saturday’s military strikes and Maduro’s reported capture, which officials characterized as essential to combating narcoterrorism threatening American communities.

“Venezuela is a relatively minor player in global drug trafficking, acting as a transit country through which drugs produced elsewhere are smuggled,” according to counternarcotic experts cited by multiple media outlets analyzing the administration’s claims.

Colombia Dominates Cocaine Production

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Investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration concluded in their annual report that 84% of cocaine seized in the United States comes from Colombia, not Venezuela. In the report’s four pages dedicated to cocaine trafficking, Venezuela receives no mention.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Venezuela is not a cocaine-producing country. Almost all coca crops are concentrated in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, with Colombia seeing dramatic production increases in recent years.

“The majority of Colombian cocaine is being trafficked north along the Pacific coast,” the UNODC reports, identifying Ecuador, Central America and Mexico as primary transit countries.

Colombia’s cocaine production has grown significantly due to an increase in cultivation area — almost 100,000 hectares more since 2020 — and higher yields in refining the product, according to UN researchers. An estimated 2,660 tons of cocaine are produced annually in Colombia, while only 400 tons transit through Venezuela yearly, most destined for Europe rather than the United States.

Mexico Controls Fentanyl Pipeline

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The main source of drugs entering the United States is the synthetic opioid fentanyl from Mexico, while cocaine comes predominantly from Colombia. Venezuela does not produce or ship fentanyl, experts emphasize.

David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist who studies violence in Venezuela, said drug trafficking from the South American country “is relatively minor compared to other countries in the region such as Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico.”

The DEA reported in 2021 that only 8% of cocaine destined for the U.S. in 2020 was trafficked through the Caribbean from Venezuela. SOUTHCOM data from 2022 showed 80% of drug flow into the United States went through the Eastern Pacific, while the Caribbean route accounted for just 20%.

Regime Change Could Increase Violence

Analysis from the New Lines Institute warns that Maduro’s ouster could trigger increased violence and instability without necessarily reducing drug flows.

“Competition triggered by Maduro’s ouster could extend beyond the Cartel de los Soles to encompass struggles among various criminal organizations over trafficking corridors and access to the security apparatus,” the institute reported.

Mexican cartels like Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, Colombian criminal groups, and Brazilian gangs are poised to expand their footprints in Venezuela should Maduro fall, experts warn.

Phil Gunson, senior analyst for the Andes Region at International Crisis Group, said the Trump administration has conflated several situations to justify military action.

“Cartel de los Soles, per se, doesn’t exist. It’s a journalistic expression created to refer to the involvement of Venezuelan authorities in drug trafficking,” Gunson told CNN.

The term describes a loosely defined group of corrupt government officials with links to drug trafficking, not a centrally organized cartel, according to independent analysts from InSight Crime.

Colombian Border Remains Drug Hub

Leaked documents from the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office revealed that Venezuelan military personnel cooperate with Colombian guerrillas in drug trafficking operations centered in the Catatumbo region, a borderland area rich in coca production estimated at 330 tons per year.

The region hosts presence from Mexican cartels including Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, along with Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, creating a complex picture of rival criminal organizations occupying the same territory.

However, infrastructure supporting illicit trades — logistics networks, protection rackets, and relationships with transnational criminal organizations — is so deeply entrenched that it would likely continue functioning independent of any single leader, analysts warn.

ELN Insurgents Key Player

Neither Venezuelan regime change nor continued U.S. military pressure addresses one of the largest risk factors: Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN), the insurgent group that has become a major cocaine trade actor.

The ELN serves as the primary mover of cocaine from Colombia to Venezuela after re-establishing itself in borderland regions. The group operates with such freedom in Venezuela’s Apure state that analysts characterize it as an “ELN fiefdom.”

The Maduro government has used the ELN to oversee elections in the region and coerce votes, according to intelligence analysts. Given the group’s major role in drug trafficking, any effective measures to curb flows would require addressing the ELN’s presence — something regime change alone would not accomplish.

“Under Maduro, Venezuela’s military and security apparatus has become dependent on illicit revenue streams,” the New Lines Institute analysis concluded. “Lack of economic alternatives create an imperative to engage in illicit drug trafficking.”

Toppling Maduro would not necessarily dismantle corruption networks within the military or improve the country’s economic weakness, experts caution. High-ranking military officers who have built personal wealth through drug trafficking have both means and incentive to continue operations regardless of who controls the presidential palace.

Will the capture of Maduro meaningfully disrupt drug flows to the United States, or simply create new opportunities for competing criminal organizations?

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