Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez slammed Colombian President Gustavo Petro for saying the Cartel de los Soles, which the Trump administration claims is being led by Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro, doesn't exist.
"Gustavo Petro has just signed his own sentence. "We Won't Take This Lightly In the U.S. Congress. On the contrary, this is extremely serious," Gimenez said in a social media publication.
🚨Gustavo Petro acaba de firmar su propia sentencia.
— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) August 25, 2025
En el Congreso de Estados Unidos, no tomaremos esto de chiste. Al contrario, es gravísimo. https://t.co/erKKzXry3q
He was responding to a publication by Petro in which he also claimed that drug-trafficking in Venezuela is controlled by an organization he dubbed the "Drug-trafficking Board," adding that its leaders live in Europe and the Middle East.
"I proposed to the U.S. and Venezuela to destroy that cartel together. It is a matter of coordination, not submission. Venezuela's political problem is solved among Venezuelans and with more democracy," the Colombian president added.
Petro had already made a similar statement last week, when he said the cartel is a "lie like Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and only serves to invade countries." He added that the U.S. government and European intelligence agencies have had information" on the Drug-trafficking board "for a long time."
Petro went on to say that the group "controls the largest amount of cocaine sold in Colombia, transporting it through submersible vessels and speedboats in Colombia and through airplanes through Venezuela. They buy public officials and opposition members, as well as law enforcement officers in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador."
"Colombian, Ecuadorean and Venezuelan authorities have managed to capture Albanian and Italian leaders who are part of the Drug-trafficking Board, favoring Europe in their shipments and destroying the Haitian government," Petro added.
The president concluded by warning that "consequences of encouraging the invasion of Venezuela will cause millions to migrate the Colombia and a drop in the price of oil to less than $50 a barrel," bankrupting the country's state-run oil company Ecopetrol while "extractors of light oil" in the Middle East, the U.S. and Russia "take the market."
Petro has been publicly weighing on the deployment of U.S. warships near the Venezuelan coast, also saying last week that "gringos are mad if they think that invading Venezuela will solve their problems."
"They are dragging Venezuela into a Syria-like situation, with the problem that they are dragging Colombia too," he added. "I told Trump through his emissaries that it would be the worst mistake."
Petro went on to say that an eventual attack would actually be aimed at taking Venezuela's natural resources. "They would take underground riches, minerals, and that means more for death, not for life."
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