US Treasury sanctions Mexican companies accused of aiding Sinaloa cartel's fentanyl production

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday sanctioned a network of companies and their affiliates that allegedly supplied precursor chemicals to make fentanyl to a faction of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel.

A dozen Mexico-based companies and eight of the people managing them were accused of using their pharmaceutical, laboratory, chemical, cleaning and real estate businesses to purchase the chemicals and provide them to the Sinaloa cartel's “Chapitos” faction, run by sons of the former Sinaloa leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

One of the businesses, Sumilab, previously faced sanctions in 2023 by the Biden administration, but was able to maintain its “corporate structure” through a number of other front companies, Treasury officials wrote in a statement. The Monday measures freeze all assets in the U.S. and block U.S. transactions with the businesses and people sanctioned.

The cartel is among an expanding number of Latin American criminal groups that the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations, part of an ongoing effort to more aggressively go after drug-trafficking groups.

“President Trump has made clear that stopping the deadly flow of drugs into our country is a top national security priority," Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley wrote in a statement. "The Treasury Department is committed to dismantling the complex financial networks that support these terrorist organizations.”

The Sinaloa cartel and other criminal organizations receiving the foreign terrorist organization designation in recent months differ from others seen as terrorist groups because they're largely non-political and more focused on raking in profit.

Despite that, Trump said last week that his administration was in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, following strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean that has set much of Latin America on edge.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america