By José R. Cabañas Rodríguez on August 30, 2025
Marco Rubio
The use of an alleged link to the illegal drug trade as a pretext for the United States to take forceful action against the governments of Mexico and Venezuela not only provokes political rejection, but also calls for clarification of certain background information that the US side is hiding or selectively ignoring.
At a time when a supposed fight against the cartels is being declared, they are being classified as terrorist organizations, and the governments of President Claudia Sheinbaum and President Nicolás Maduro are being held directly responsible for the actions of some of these groups in order to justify the deployment of military forces in the Caribbean, it is also important to counterattack the “narrative” that seeks to support such discourse.
In the specific case of Mexico, among many other sources, we can cite the research conducted by Sean Campbell and Topher L. McDougal and published in part on theconversation.com on May 28 of this year, which concludes that most of the light and heavy weapons used by Mexican traffickers to confront the authorities in their own country come from the United States.
Using data published by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), both authors established a connection with information provided by Mexican agencies on weapons seized in anti-drug operations. One of the findings of the investigation indicates that between 2015 and 2023, data on some 185,000 weapons seized during police operations in Mexican territory were sent to the ATF to trace them back to US manufacturers. It was determined that around 125,000 of them were produced in the northern neighbor. In addition, it was established that in 2022 alone, some 135,000 weapons (of various origins) were trafficked into Mexico across the shared border.
These authors and many other US specialists conclude that the conditions for such trafficking are created by the number of legislative measures that have been passed in the United States to facilitate the arms trade, under the political and financial activism of the so-called National Rifle Association. Paradoxically, this pressure group has generously financed the re-election campaigns of the only member of Trump’s cabinet who has previous legislative experience as a senator, the same person who is now leading the attacks against Mexico and Venezuela.
According to the aforementioned authors, this illegal flow of weapons is also used by human traffickers who arrive at the southern border of the United States illegally, a trade that the current US government intends to stop and reverse.
For those who use the existence of such cartels as justification for threatening Mexican sovereignty, it should be significant that so far this year, Mexican authorities have handed over a total of 55 leaders of these criminal organizations to their US counterparts. In February, 29 people were charged with various crimes (murder, extortion, money laundering) related to drug trafficking, and in August, another 26 were charged, all from the same organizations that the United States now classifies as international terrorist groups.
It is worth asking in advance whether the US judicial system will share the information it obtains from these investigations with its Mexican counterparts, or whether it will use it to favor the business interests of those groups that have links to the current leadership. It is worth remembering that when the US authorities investigated (2016) the Brazilian company Constructora Odebrecht for heavy bribery of authorities in various countries in exchange for valuable contracts, they found or fabricated “evidence” only in those cases that were useful for proceeding against “unfriendly” authorities, while they did not find a single trace of irregular activity in the state of Florida, where Odebrecht’s main US empire was based. Incidentally, the investigation was conducted when the only member of Trump’s team with a background in the legislature was representing that state as a senator.
For their part, in early 2025, Venezuelan authorities approached the US federal agencies handling the case of the multimillion-dollar embezzlement carried out by members of the “shadow government” (Guaido boys) fabricated in Washington in 2019 to undermine Venezuelan sovereignty and which ended up using both the funds of the Venezuelan oil company CITGO (5 billion) and the budget of the US agency USAID (700 million) approved to promote “regime change” in Caracas for their personal gain.
To be precise, it should be remembered that this plot against Venezuela bore the personal stamp of the then National Security Advisor John Bolton, the same man who is now in decline in the face of Trump’s jaws, who have withdrawn his security protection and even carried out searches of his residence. But it was the then-senator from Florida and current Secretary of State who sought space for Guaidó’s “representative” in Washington in the House of Representatives plenary to hear Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address right under their noses.
Both played a significant role in the creation and operation of the so-called Lima Group to attack Venezuela from within the OAS, as well as in securing the personal participation of the presidents of several member countries in the provocation organized at the time on the border with Colombia. Only one still retains the support of the supreme Trump. Paradoxically, the former senator was also appointed by the current administration to head USAID, in an attempt to eliminate its “inconsistent practices” identified by Elon Musk and his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). However, the issue has not been discussed again.
In the case of Venezuela, accusations about the alleged activity of illegal groups linked to drug trafficking are a creature born without prior pregnancy, as US agencies specializing in the subject have not included any reference to the issue in their annual reports.
The issue of drug trafficking has been a recurring theme in the former senator’s environment, who at some point will also be a former secretary.
He was born in 1971 in a city (Miami) that was already benefiting from trade between the southern United States and the Caribbean, from tourism to and from the region, and which would gradually transform into a large metropolis, becoming the main gateway for cocaine and other narcotics.
In that decade, what was known as the “Miami drug war” was already taking place, driven by actions carried out by federal agencies to try to control trafficking, but also by violence perpetrated by groups seeking to dominate the business. Around 1975, the importation of narcotics ceased to be controlled by the so-called “Cuban mafia” and passed into the hands of Pablo Escobar’s cartel with the emergence of the Medellín Cartel.
This transition was reflected in many articles in the mainstream American press, including George Volsky’s special report for the New York Times entitled “Killings in Florida over drugs on rise” on July 22, 1979. By that date, 30% of violent homicides in Miami (349) were related to the drug trade. The following year, the figures doubled. At that time, the phrase “failed state” was coined, which has since been widely used against third parties, as the city had the highest per capita crime rate in the United States.
Before and not after the migratory flow that originated in the port of Mariel, Cuba (1980), the term “Cocaine Cowboys” was already established in the city, and its mayor, Maurice Ferré, welcomed the influx of capital that was suddenly deposited in existing and newly created banks, which was gradually “laundered” in the city’s great real estate bubble.
Part of the literature reflecting those events identifies Salvador Magluta, who left Cuba at the age of seven as part of Operation Peter Pan in 1961, and Guillermo Falcón, who also emigrated from the island at an early age, as the main protagonists of the term “Cocaine Cowboys.” Both were prosecuted between the mid-1990s and 2000, found guilty, and sentenced to long prison terms.
And what does this information have to do with the subject addressed in this text? Well, in an extensive article by journalist Ann Louise Bardach, published in Político magazine at the end of 2015 (entitled Prodigal Son, Marco Rubio’s Complicated Cuban Legacy), many interesting scenes from that period are explained, while falsehoods described in the senator’s official history are corrected. But one of the most interesting pieces of information provided by the text is the claim that there was an important third member of the Cocaine Cowboys, who was not often mentioned, Mr. Mario Tabraue.
This individual and his father Guillermo (a mercenary from Playa Girón) were arrested in the so-called Operation Cobra (1987) on charges of selling approximately $75 million worth of marijuana and cocaine. Among those arrested was another Cuban-born citizen named Orlando Cicilia, who was then the brother-in-law of the teenager Marco Rubio (husband of his sister Barbara).
The incident would have been inconsequential for his political future if Orlando had not accompanied his relative in public celebrations for being elected Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 2006 and after his victory as a federal senator in 2010. Even appearing in both series of photos could have been irrelevant if their inclusion in a 2011 Univision report had not been used as an excuse for both Rubio and his close friend (and the most corrupt member of the House of Representatives to date) David Rivera to engage in partisan and public actions against the Latino media empire, calling for the expulsion of the journalist who generated the report and its top executives.
The long history of corruption of the Rubio-Rivera duo in the state legislature can be found in the article “Marco Rubio’s Ties to Sketchy Businesses, Drug Dealing, and Ponzi Schemes,” published by The Observer in early 2016.
The Cocaine Cowboys who survived the arrest of Cicilia and his bosses made significant financial contributions during the 1990s to CIA plans to attack Cuba and specifically target the lives of its leaders. This issue came to light when Guillermo Falcón served his sentence and was considered for deportation to Cuba. The story was reflected, among others, in the article “Cocaine cowboys ‘Willie and Sal’ made fortune, then financed CIA-run exile ops to kill Fidel Castro,” published on October 4, 2017, in the Miami Herald.
These events and many others gave rise to what has come to be known as the Drug Culture in South Florida, specifically connected to the city of Miami, and perhaps to the entire Miami-Dade County. The saga of this phenomenon was reflected in films such as Scarface (1983), the series Miami Vice (1984-1989), the two parts of the films Cocaine Cowboys (2006) and (2008), and the docuseries Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami (2021). The impact on literature, theater, and other cultural expressions is equally broad.
According to the Florida Department of Children and Families: “While cocaine trafficking defined Miami’s past, today’s drug culture is more diverse and complex. Synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and MDMA have gained momentum, with devastating consequences.”
Coinciding with the rise to politics of the senator-secretary-prosecutor, there was a new qualitative shift in drug use in his home state. According to the monthly publication South Florida Hospital News: “An epidemic has hit Florida. In 2007, prescription drug abuse claimed the lives of up to nine people a day. In addition, a total of 8,620 Floridians died from drug-related deaths, and the number continued to rise in 2008, (…) Florida is home to the top 25 prescribers of oxycodone in the country, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”
In other words, a different kind of drug trafficking emerged and developed, which we could call white-collar drug trafficking, against which the Florida state legislature did little or absolutely nothing.
In this regard, the Tampa Bay Times published in 2018 the results of an extensive investigation by the Palm Beach Post in an article titled “Florida lawmakers, including Marco Rubio, unleashed the heroin crisis in the United States.” Part of the text stated that: “Their failure to act fueled the nation’s appetite for pills, further worsening the heroin crisis when Florida finally cracked down in 2011.” That is, when the Speaker of the local House had already become a federal senator.
In the new scenario, Rubio quickly realized that the powerful lobby group known as Big Pharma would be a faithful companion on his path to political advancement.
His commitment to the group of powerful pharmaceutical companies led him in 2022 to support a bill that would overturn a previous decision regulating the price of drugs for beneficiaries of social programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
According to the founder of the Patients for Affordable Medicines Now association: “Senator Rubio is prioritizing big pharma over patients, seeking to reverse provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that will reduce costs for hundreds of thousands of Floridians and are supported by nearly 80 percent of Americans, including seven out of 10 Republicans.”
From the pedestal offered by the Secretary of State, the Miami-born official now intends to use the argument of drug trafficking to attack the sovereignty of third parties, to stir up crowds and unite wills. But a simple tear in the packaging of his arguments, as well as his biography and the history of his environment, can reduce the volume of his cries.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English