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The Big Joke Against Venezuela:
Geopolitics Disguised as Drug Warfare By Pino Arlacchi: During my tenure as head of UNODC, the UN agency against drugs and crime, I was in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil, but I never visited Venezuela. It simply wasn't necessary.
The Venezuelan government's cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking was one of 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—the real data—emerging from the 2025 World Drug Report, the organization I had the honor of leading, tells a story opposite to that spread by the Trump administration. A story that dismantles piece by piece the geopolitical fabrication built around the "Cartel of the Suns," an entity as legendary as the Loch Ness Monster, yet apt to justify sanctions, embargoes, and threats of military intervention against a country that, coincidentally, sits on one of the largest oil reserves on the planet.
Venezuela according to the UNODC: A marginal country on the drug trafficking map
The UNODC 2025 report is crystal clear, which should shame those who have constructed the rhetoric that demonizes Venezuela. The report barely mentions Venezuela, stating that a marginal fraction of Colombian drug production passes through the country on its way to the United States and Europe. Venezuela, according to the UN, has established itself as a territory free from the cultivation of coca leaves, marijuana, and similar products, as well as from the presence of international criminal cartels. (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/data-and-analysis/world-drug-report-2025.html)
The document simply confirms the 30 previous annual reports, which omit Venezuelan drug trafficking because it doesn't exist. Only 5% of Colombian drugs transit through Venezuela. To put this figure in perspective: in 2018, while 210 tons of cocaine transited through Venezuela, Colombia produced or sold 2,370 tons (ten times more) and Guatemala, 1,400 tons (the US has seven military bases in Colombia, surrounded by coca growers...).
Yes, you read that right: Guatemala is a drug corridor seven times more important than the supposedly fearsome Bolivarian narco-state. But no one talks about it because Guatemala has historically had shortages—it produces 0.01% of the world's total—of the only non-natural drug that interests Trump: oil.
The Fantastic Cartel of the Sun: Hollywood Fiction
The "Cartel of the Sun" is a product of Trump's imagination. It is supposedly led by the president of Venezuela, but it is not mentioned in the report of the world's leading anti-drug agency, nor in the documents of any European agency, nor in almost any other anti-crime agency in the world. Not even a footnote. A deafening silence that should make anyone with a modicum of critical thinking reflect. How can a criminal organization so powerful as to merit a $50 million bounty be completely ignored by those working in the anti-drug field?
Ecuador: The Real Center That No One Wants to See
While Washington raises the Venezuelan specter, the true centers of drug trafficking thrive almost uninterruptedly. Ecuador, for example, accounts for 57% of the banana containers that leave Guayaquil and arrive in Antwerp loaded with cocaine. European authorities seized 13 tons of cocaine from a single Spanish ship, originating precisely from Ecuadorian ports controlled by companies protected by Ecuadorian government officials.
The European Union produced a detailed report on the ports of Guayaquil, documenting how "Colombian, Mexican, and Albanian mafias operate extensively in Ecuador." Ecuador's homicide rate soared from 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to 45.7 in 2023. Yet Ecuador is rarely mentioned. Perhaps because Ecuador produces only 0.5% of the world's oil and because its government has not grown accustomed to challenging US dominance in Latin America?
The Real Drug Routes: Geography vs. Propaganda
During my years at UNODC, one of the most important lessons I learned is that geography doesn't lie. Drug routes follow a precise logic: proximity to production centers, ease of transport, corruption of local authorities, presence of established criminal networks. Venezuela meets almost none of these criteria.
Colombia produces more than 70% of the world's cocaine. Peru and Bolivia account for most of the remaining 30%. The logical routes to reach the US and European markets are the Pacific to Asia, the Eastern Caribbean to Europe, and, by land, Central America to the United States.
Venezuela, bordering the South Atlantic, is at a geographical disadvantage for the three main routes. Criminal logistics make Venezuela a marginal player in the vast international drug trafficking landscape.
Cuba: The Example That Shames Them
Geography doesn't lie, but politics can overcome it. Cuba continues to represent the gold standard for anti-drug cooperation in the Caribbean. An island not far from the coast of Florida, a theoretically perfect base for transit to the United States, but in practice, it remains beyond the reach of drug trafficking. I have repeatedly observed the admiration of DEA and FBI agents for the rigorous anti-drug policies of the Cuban communists.
Chavista Venezuela has consistently followed the Cuban model in the fight against drugs, inaugurated by Fidel Castro himself: international cooperation, territorial control, and repression of criminal activity. Neither Venezuela nor Cuba has ever had large tracts of land cultivated with cocaine and controlled by major criminals.
The European Union has no particular oil interests in Venezuela, but it does have a specific interest in combating the drug trafficking that plagues its cities. The Union has prepared its European Drug Report 2025. The document, based on real data and not geopolitical illusions, does not mention Venezuela as a corridor for international drug trafficking.
This is the difference between an honest analysis and a false and insulting narrative. Europe needs reliable data to protect its citizens from drugs, so it produces accurate reports. The United States needs justification for its oil policies, so it produces propaganda disguised as intelligence.
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 various routes through West Africa for distribution. Venezuela and Cuba simply do not figure in this picture.
But Venezuela is systematically demonized, contrary to any principle of truth. Former FBI Director James Comey offered the explanation in his post-resignation memoirs, where he analyzed the ulterior motives behind US policies toward Venezuela: Trump had told him that the Maduro government was "a government sitting on a mountain of oil that we have to buy." This isn't about drugs, crime, or national security. This is about oil that would be better off not paying for.
It is therefore Donald Trump who deserves an international reward for a very specific crime: "systematic slander against a sovereign state for the purpose of seizing its oil resources."
* Pino Arlacchi was Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNODC, the UN's anti-drug and anti-crime program.
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