The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday sanctioned several individuals and companies connected to Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, including three Mexico-based carriers.
The sanctions against Juan Francisco Valenzuela Valenzuela and his organization, sometimes called the Valenzuela Drug Trafficking Organization (Valenzuela DTO), freezes all their property and other interests in the United States and bars American companies from doing business with them.
Treasury officials said Valenzuela and his drug trafficking network rose to prominence smuggling methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl in trucks across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The Valenzuela DTO fuels the ongoing drug epidemic we face in the United States which has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans annually,” Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson said in a statement. “Starving this network of resources will help deprive the Sinaloa Cartel of critical support it needs to traffic its dangerous illicit drugs.”
Three transportation companies — Guadalajara-based Arfel Cool Logistics, Culiacan-based Maruha Transport Services and Culiacan-based Pandas Fríos Trucking — were sanctioned “for having engaged in, or attempted to engage in, activities or transactions that have materially contributed to, or pose a significant risk of materially contributing to, the international proliferation of illicit drugs or their means of production,” according to a news release.
Valenzuela’s siblings Jorge Alberto Valenzuela Valenzuela and Wuendi Yuridia Valenzuela Valenzuela were arrested in 2020 and 2021, accused of importing and transporting tons of illicit drugs as members of the Valenzuela DTO.
Two other Mexican nationals and alleged Valenzuela DTO members, Hector Alfonso Araujo Peralta and Raul Rivas Chaires, have also been sanctioned by the Treasury Department.
Federal drug trafficking indictments were announced in October 2021 against Juan Francisco Valenzuela Valenzuela, Peralta and Chaires. To date, these individuals have not been arrested and are considered fugitives.
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