LatinNews Daily - 01 July 2024

Mexico: On 20 June US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) has issued new sanctions against eight alleged leaders of Mexican drug trafficking organisation (DTO) La Nueva Familia Michoacana. The DTO was reportedly established in 2010 as an offshoot of La Familia Michoacana DTO in consortium with other groups. According to the Treasury, its activities include the trafficking of fentanyl, precursor chemicals, cocaine, and methamphetamines into the US, as well as smuggling migrants across the US-Mexico border. The individuals targeted by the sanctions include Rodolfo Maldonado Bustos, the alleged next-in-line to the DTO’s co-leaders Johnny and José Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga; Josué Ramírez Carrera, an alleged financial leader of the DTO; Uriel Tabares Martínez, an alleged assassin; and various other alleged “key lieutenants” of the DTO. Yellen said that she and US President Joe Biden were committed to disrupting “deadly supply chains” of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and its precursors, adding that, “Treasury has unique capabilities and expertise to target the financial flows of these cartels who are poisoning our communities.” A press release by the US Department of the Treasury states that following the new sanctions, all property and interests in property of the eight designated persons “in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported to Ofac”, while “any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50% or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.” Concurrently, the US Treasury announced that its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had issued a supplemental advisory to inform US financial institutions on how to identify and guard against activity associated with the illicit fentanyl supply chain.

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