Narco-Terrorism? Identities Of Slain Venezuelan Drug-Smugglers Revealed, & The Truth Is Nuanced

Unverified videos shared on social media Friday and picked up in foreign media outlets reportedly showed a group Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets scrambled and patrolling airspace hours after two US B-52 bombers again flew over the southern Caribbean Sea near Venezuela’s coastline on Thursday.

The US bombers’ flight marked the fourth such operation in recent weeks, after early this month there were reports that President Trump may order ‘imminent’ military action targeting the Maduro government and land-based cartel locations. This is an extremely expensive and unprecedented military build-up in these waters over what may in the end be some fairly low-level and typical drug transit in the region. Watch unverified video featured by RT and others of Venezuela scrambling F-16s in response:

Maduro scrambles F-16s after Pentagon B-52s approach Venezuela https://t.co/0IJmyDsW1E pic.twitter.com/MY94AQJQ13

— RT (@RT_com) November 8, 2025

Data from Flightradar24 indicated that the two B-52s flew parallel to Venezuela’s northern coast, circled northeast of Caracas, and then turned back toward the sea and eventually the American mainland.

“Both aircraft are conventionally armed Boeing B‑52H Stratofortress models, according to publicly available flight data on the website Flightradar24,” Newsweek reported. “The planes were flying under the call signs TITO41 and TITO42.”

“The sorties are the latest in what the Air Force is calling bomber attack demonstrations in the Caribbean region,” the report reviews, and tallies: “Last month, three groups of B-52H and B-1B Lancers flew similar publicly visible missions to within tens of miles of Venezuela’s coast.”

The Associated Press has meanwhile begun interviewing Venezuelan and other eyewitnesses to conclude that at least some of the many dozens of crewmembers killed aboard alleged drug boats by US drones strikes were very low-level criminals who typically worked as fishermen, taxi drivers, or laborers in derelict and impoverished coastal villages.

Analyzing some of the strikes over the last several weeks, the AP writes:

In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela’s breathtaking northeastern coast, from which some of the boats departed, residents and relatives said the dead men had indeed been running drugs but were not narco-terrorists or leaders of a cartel or gang.

Most of the nine men were crewing such craft for the first or second time, making at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. They were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two were low-level career criminals. One was a well-known local crime boss who contracted out his smuggling services to traffickers.

That does seem to be outside verification that drug-running boats and organizations have indeed been the targets, but the question of whether these men can in reality be classified as ‘narco-terrorists’ remains an open one and the AP report paints them as by and large impoverished locals trying to make quick cash.

Over 60 people have been killed and seventeen boats blown up. The AP report paints a humble picture of the ‘narco operations’: 

The men lived on the Paria Peninsula, in mostly unpainted cinderblock homes that can go weeks without water service and regularly lose power for several hours a day. They awoke to panoramic views of a national park’s tropical forests, the Gulf of Paria’s shallows and the Caribbean’s sparkling sapphire waters. When the time came for their drug runs, they boarded open-hulled fishing skiffs that relied on powerful outboard motors to haul their drugs to nearby Trinidad and other islands.

President Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced.

One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus… pic.twitter.com/4Z64Hm2Dk1

— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) November 8, 2025

The Venezuelan government has rejected Pentagon accusations of organized narco-smuggling and has formally complained to the United Nations that these are “extrajudicial executions.”

Certainly drug smuggling into the United States must be stopped, and this is conventionally the role of the Coast Guard, DEA, and other federal agencies – however, are Americans ready to support another war over some low level drug running already long common for decades?