(Washington) Washington announced Thursday economic sanctions against eight people linked to a Mexican drug cartel, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, accused of trafficking fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, but also of being smugglers of migrants from Mexico to the United States.
“The leaders we are targeting have committed heinous acts, whether it’s controlling drug routes, gunrunning, money laundering or murder,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to say during a trip to Atlanta, according to a speech distributed ahead of her address.
“Our sanctions will cut off cartel leaders from their ill-gotten money and make it harder for them to bring deadly fentanyl onto our streets,” she added.
The measures taken by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) aim to stifle a network known to send illicit drugs from Mexico across the southern U.S. border to Dallas and Houston, Texas, as well as to other cities like Chicago and Atlanta, according to Ms. Yellen.
The group is also known for its human trafficking activities, for example by staging, in photos and videos, migrants, falsely threatened with being murdered, in order to then apply for asylum in the United States. “In exchange for this service, individuals pay money to La Nueva Familia Michoacana.”
The cartel “is also known for forcing people into the United States illegally with drugs” so that they can then be sold there. If they refuse, “they are informed that they and their families will be killed,” details the Treasury.
In addition to these measures, the Treasury Department also issued an advisory to help U.S. financial institutions detect signs of the illicit fentanyl supply chain.