Cartel of the Suns declared a terrorist group in Ecuador!
Quito, Aug 14 (EFE).-
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared the Venezuelan Cartel of the Suns a terrorist group operating on Ecuadorian soil on Thursday and ordered intelligence to analyze its influence within the criminal gangs on which he declared “war” in early 2024.
Through a decree, Noboa followed the same line as the administration of US President Donald Trump, whose Treasury department sanctioned the cartel as a terrorist entity last month.
The Ecuadorian president took the step after US Attorney General Pam Bondi linked Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to drug trafficking and announced a $50 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
In his decree, Noboa directed national intelligence to coordinate with the intelligence services of other states to determine possible links between the Cartel of the Suns and the criminal network in Ecuador.
Noboa had also declared the transnational criminal gang Tren de Aragua, which emerged in a Venezuelan prison, a terrorist organization in January, just days after the US did so.
Subsequently, the president also classified other dissident criminal organizations of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), such as the Border Commandos and the Oliver Sinisterra Front, as terrorists.
The now-criminal terror organizations have become a target of the Ecuadorian government within the state of “internal armed conflict” declared by Noboa in early 2024.
He launched this “war” to stem an unprecedented escalation of violence in the country, which has placed it at the top of the homicide rate in Latin America. The trend has worsened this year, with an average of at least one murder per hour nationwide.
Furthermore, Ecuador and Venezuela severed diplomatic relations at all levels in April, when Noboa ordered the police raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former Correa vice president Jorge Glas, who had been granted asylum because he was considered a “political prisoner” due to his accumulated convictions and corruption cases.
Maduro was accused of drug trafficking and terrorism by the US during Trump’s first term.
Specifically, Washington now claims that the Cartel of the Suns is led by Maduro and high-ranking Venezuelan government officials and military personnel.
The accusation linking Maduro to drug trafficking was rejected by Venezuela’s Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, who asserted that the Cartel of the Suns is a US “creation.”
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez called Wednesday for Latin American countries to unite in the face of what she considered “direct threats of military intervention” by the US, after Trump directed the US military to target drug cartels in the region to protect his country. EFE fgg/tw
