The Cartel of the Suns

 

The Cartel of the Suns (Spanish: Cartel de los Soles) is a Venezuelan organization supposedly headed by high-ranking members of the Armed Forces of Venezuela who are involved in international drug trade.[1] According to Héctor Landaeta, journalist and author of Chavismo, Narco-trafficking and the Military, the phenomenon began when Colombian drugs began to enter into Venezuela from corrupt border units and the "rot moved its way up the ranks."

Reports that members of the Venezuelan military[3] were involved in drug trafficking began in the 1990s, though it was limited to taking payments and ignoring drug traffickers.[1] It was alleged that officers of Hugo Chávez's Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 that planned the 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempts had created a group that participated in drug trafficking that was known as the "Cartel Bolivariano" or "Bolivarian Cartel".[1] Following the 1992 coup attempts, the Los Angeles Times noted that Venezuelan officers may have sought to take over the government since there was "money to be made from corruption, particularly in drugs".[4]

In 1993, the term "Cartel de los Soles" or "Cartel of the Suns" was first used when allegations of two National Guard generals of the Anti-Drug National Command, Ramón Guillén Dávila and Orlando Hernández Villegas, were investigated for drug trafficking crimes.[1][5] The term came from the general emblems that looked like suns on their uniforms.[1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel_of_the_Suns

"Smartmatic" = 444 (Latin)

"El Cartel de los Soles" = 201 (Ordinal)