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Tropical sea of the Atlantic Ocean, located east of Central America, south of the Greater Antilles and north of South America
Most reporting and official U.S. assessments identify Mexico and Colombia as the primary countries through which the largest volumes of illegal drugs—especially fentanyl and cocaine—reach the United S...
Available reporting shows Venezuela is primarily cited as a transit route for cocaine and other drugs, not as a major producer of fentanyl destined for the United States; U.S. and independent analysts...
Since 2019 the universe of refineries actually taking Venezuelan heavy and extra‑heavy crudes has narrowed and rerouted: U.S. Gulf Coast facilities built or retrofitted for heavy, sour Venezuelan grad...
Available reporting and government analyses indicate there is no evidence that a meaningful or measurable quantity of illicit fentanyl is being manufactured in or trafficked from Venezuela to the Unit...
Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has been the subject of competing valuations, legal settlements, and contested distributions since his August 2019 death, with credible accounts placing the estate initially b...
Venezuelan-linked smugglers use fast, open-hulled fishing skiffs—commonly called go-fast boats—to ferry cocaine and other contraband to nearby Caribbean islands such as Trinidad and hops across the Ea...
This year the Trump administration pursued a sweeping agenda that critics say includes aggressive immigration enforcement, expansive executive orders (218 EOs in 2025), military actions in the Caribbe...
Venezuelan-linked traffickers have been implicated in maritime flows across both the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, using coastal hubs like Sucre and Margarita Island and routes toward the Eastern Car...
The U.S. government has publicly declared it will treat the Cartel de los Soles — which Washington says is “headed by Nicolás Maduro” — with terrorist-designation tools that let it freeze assets and c...
Available public sources do not give a single, authoritative tonnage for Venezuela’s lithium reserves; mainstream datasets list the largest South American lithium resources concentrated in the “Lithiu...
Recent government and reporting data point to Colombia as the principal source of cocaine that reaches the United States: UN and Reuters reporting says Colombia was the source for most drugs crossing ...
The available reporting shows the U.S. government asserted that the Venezuelan speedboats were , but multiple independent outlets, experts, and Venezuelan officials say has been produced to independen...
Republican leaders have invoked Barack Obama’s drone campaign—often citing a figure of roughly 500–550 strikes—to defend or contextualize recent “double-tap” maritime strikes in the Caribbean; reporti...
Traffickers move cocaine and other drugs from Venezuela via a mix of maritime, island-hub, and overland networks that then link into Caribbean and Pacific corridors toward the United States and Europe...
Venezuela functions as a significant transit and facilitation hub for international cocaine trafficking, exploited by transnational criminal organizations and allegedly aided by corrupt state actors, ...
In the after ’s return to the , his administration advanced a clear agenda: sharper , aggressive , and an assertive that critics say unsettled longstanding institutions and allies, while supporters po...
Illicit drugs reaching U.S. consumers come largely from Latin America, with cocaine originating primarily in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia and synthetic opioids—most notably fentanyl—linked to production...
U.S. authorities say the vessels struck off Venezuela were drug-smuggling boats; independent reporting and regional officials say many of the destroyed craft were small open-hulled fishing skiffs and ...
U.S. forces have conducted repeated lethal strikes on small boats alleged to be trafficking drugs from Venezuela; reporting shows at least 80–87 people killed in dozens of strikes and that the strikes...
U.S. forces remain widely dispersed worldwide: publicly available tallies put more than 160,000 active-duty personnel stationed outside the United States as of mid‑2025, and the Pentagon continues to ...