Overview
- The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control named 46 subjects — 21 people and 25 companies — it says act as leaders, facilitators or commercial fronts for the Cártel de Sinaloa’s Los Mayos faction.
- Mexico’s Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera reviewed domestic bank reports and incorporated those same 46 onto its Lista de Personas Bloqueadas as a preventive administrative step that restricts transactions in the Mexican financial system.
- The UIF said it found financial operations of risk and irregularities reported by banks for some listed subjects but stressed that inclusion on the list is not a criminal finding and that listed parties keep rights to a hearing and legal appeals.
- Named by U.S. authorities were figures including Ismael Zambada Sicairos, known as Mayito Flaco, and Carlos Alberto Torres Torres, who denied the accusations while Baja California’s governor officially distanced herself and ordered checks of state contracts.
- The U.S. sanctions freeze assets in the United States and bar U.S. persons from dealings with the listed parties, apply to entities 50 percent or more owned by blocked people, and could prompt further UIF review and possible referrals to Mexico’s prosecutors depending on evidence.