How many maritime drug-smuggling voyages from Venezuela have been recorded since 2020?
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Executive summary
Available reporting documents a marked increase in high-profile maritime incidents involving alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling vessels since 2020, including a U.S. campaign of strikes beginning in September 2025 that the U.S. says targeted more than a dozen boats and resulted in scores of deaths [1] [2]. Precise counts of “maritime drug‑smuggling voyages from Venezuela” recorded since 2020 are not given in the available sources; reporting cites aggregate strike tallies (more than a dozen or over 20 strikes) and historical detection ranges from earlier U.S. military briefings rather than a definitive list of voyages [1] [2] [3].
1. What the sources actually report about voyages and strikes
News outlets and analysts document U.S. strikes on vessels the Biden/Trump administrations (timeline varies by report) said were smuggling drugs from or near Venezuela, with NPR and Britannica noting “more than a dozen” and “over 20 strikes” respectively in the campaign that expanded in late 2025 [1] [2]. These counts refer to U.S. military strike actions, not an enumerated registry of every smuggling voyage originating in Venezuela since 2020 [1] [2].
2. No single authoritative count of voyages in available reporting
None of the supplied sources provides a definitive count of maritime smuggling voyages originating in Venezuela since 2020. Available reporting focuses on U.S. strikes, legal debate and estimates of drug flow volumes, not a comprehensive tally of voyages or attempted shipments [2] [4] [3]. Therefore a precise numeric answer to the original question is not found in current reporting.
3. Context on detection and historical monitoring that complicates counting
Military and agency reporting historically detected hundreds of suspected maritime smuggling vessels per year in the wider region; one briefing cited routine detection of 350–700 suspected maritime trafficking vessels in a year in earlier decades, which suggests scope and detection limits make a single voyage count problematic [3]. SOUTHCOM and DEA data point to corridor proportions (Eastern Pacific vs Caribbean) rather than per‑voyage totals [3] [5].
4. What “voyage” and “recorded” mean for any count
Counting “voyages” depends on definitional choices that sources do not standardize: detected vs interdicted vs proven-to-carry-drugs, single-boat trips vs multiple legs, and whether U.S. strikes or local seizures constitute “records” vary across reporting [4] [2]. Several outlets stress that aerial strike videos offered no visible drug evidence, raising further ambiguity about which incidents should be classified as proven smuggling voyages [6].
5. High‑profile U.S. military strikes are the clearest documented incidents
Reporting consistently documents a wave of U.S. military strikes beginning in September 2025 that the administration described as targeting vessels used for narcotics trafficking; NPR says “more than a dozen strikes,” Britannica and New Lines Institute report “over 20 strikes,” and AP/PolitiFact/Guardian examine legality and evidence issues tied to those strikes [1] [2] [7] [8] [9]. These strike counts are the closest available proxies for recorded maritime operations tied to Venezuelan smuggling in the supplied sources.
6. Estimates of volume—used to justify action—do not equate to voyage counts
U.S. estimates of cocaine flowing through Venezuela (200–250 metric tons annually, cited in State Department and NGO summaries) are offered as context for policy and operations but do not translate into a count of individual maritime voyages [3]. Analysts note that most U.S.-bound fentanyl comes via Mexico and that the Caribbean route represents a smaller share of cocaine destined for the U.S., underscoring that volume estimates and voyage tallies are different measures [10] [6] [3].
7. Competing perspectives and limitations in the record
U.S. officials present strike tallies and assert disruptive effect; legal experts, regional governments and investigative outlets question evidence and legality and note that many smuggling flows to the U.S. come by other routes [8] [4] [9] [6]. The supplied sources emphasize that the administration has not publicly produced comprehensive, verifiable lists of voyages from Venezuela since 2020, and that independent counts are not available in the reporting [2] [4] [3].
Bottom line
Available sources do not provide a definitive count of maritime drug‑smuggling voyages originating in Venezuela since 2020. The most concrete figures in the reporting are counts of U.S. military strikes—described as “more than a dozen” by NPR and “over 20” by other outlets—which are documented incidents related to alleged smuggling but are not a comprehensive voyage registry [1] [2].