U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the State Department plans to designate the Cartel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”)—a Venezuelan criminal and drug-trafficking organization allegedly led by President Nicolás Maduro and senior members of Venezuela’s armed forces—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Rubio stated that the group is responsible for acts of terrorist violence carried out by or alongside other terrorist organizations, as well as for smuggling drugs into the United States and Europe.