(NewsInsights.org) – Fentanyl is a huge problem in the United States. It’s responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths over the past few years. The majority of the drug comes into the country from Mexico. Now, the Treasury Department is looking to cut cartels off at the knees, but hitting them where it hurts: money.
On June 20, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued sanctions against eight targets in Mexico. All are affiliated with the La Nueva Familia Michoacana drug cartel, one of the most violent and powerful, and are accused of trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl, as well as human beings, into the United States.
All eight of those sanctioned are key members of La Nueva Familia Michoacana, including Rodolfo Maldonado Bustos, who is next in line to the co-leaders who were previously sanctioned. Josue Ramirez Carrera is the gang’s financial leader and behind Bustos in succession. Josue Lopez Hernandez, Lucio Ochoa Lagunes, Kevin Arzate Gomez, and David Duran Alvarez are key lieutenants with regional connections. Uriel Tabares Martinez is an assassin for the gang, and Euclides Camacho Goicochea trafficks the narcotics to various points in the US, including Atlanta and Houston.
As a result of the sanctions, the cartel members are blocked from obtaining any interests and property belonging to them, and such possessions are to be reported to the OFAC. Yellen issued a public statement about the move, saying the “sanctions will cut off the cartel leaders from their ill-gotten money and make it harder for them to bring deadly fentanyl to our streets.”
Because the cartels rely largely on the US dollar and banking systems to make their purchases and pay their members, Yellen says, “the Treasury Department has a unique ability to disrupt and degrade” their operations. The supplemental advisory also aims to inform financial institutions of better methods to identify and flag suspicious transactions, such as those used to buy supplies — namely from China — to produce the drugs.
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