The United States imposes economic sanctions on eight leaders and lieutenants of the Mexican cartel La Nueva Familia Michoacana for trafficking fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as for smuggling migrants across the border with Mexico, the Treasury Department reported this Thursday.
Those sanctioned “have carried out atrocious acts, from controlling drug routes to arms trafficking, money laundering and murder,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will declare in Atlanta (southeast), according to the speech distributed to the press before his intervention.
The New Michoacana Family used to traffic methamphetamine but in recent years it expanded its activity to the production of fentanyl that it enters the United States across the border “through buses, among other means of transportation,” the Treasury Department reports in a release. Once inside, it sends it to cities such as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Tulsa, Chicago and Charlotte.
Washington also accuses the cartel of being involved in human trafficking.
“For example, members of La Nueva Familia Michoacana mount photographs and videos in which people appear under interrogation or at risk of being murdered” with which migrants “falsely affirm to United States immigration officials their supposed need to apply.” asylum,” he says.
In exchange, the migrants pay them money.
It also forces them to transport drugs and if the migrants “do not comply with the order to sell the drugs provided by La Nueva Familia Michoacana, they are told that they and their families will be killed,” the statement states.
In addition, the cartel, “one of the most powerful and violent in Mexico,” uses tobacco industry workers for drug trafficking, he adds.
In parallel with the OFAC sanctions, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued a warning with information to help U.S. banks and other financial institutions protect themselves from activities related to the supply of fentanyl.
Source: With information from AP
