US sanctions Mexican banks, alleging connections to cartel money laundering

Mexican Finance Ministry says it has not received grounds to enactment claims against CIBanco, Intercam and Vector banks.

The United States has imposed sanctions connected 3 Mexican banks, alleging they had been utilized to launder wealth for drug cartels.

On Wednesday, the US Department of the Treasury tied the banks – CIBanco, Intercam Banco and Vector Casa de Bolsa – to the cross-border trafficking of the deadly synthetic cause fentanyl.

It accused them of playing “a longstanding and captious relation successful laundering millions of dollars connected behalf of Mexico-based cartels and facilitating payments for the procurement of precursor chemicals needed to nutrient fentanyl”.

The sanctions are portion of a wider unit run by the medication of US President Donald Trump against Latin American gangs, transgression networks and cause traffickers.

That run has included designating respective groups arsenic “foreign violent organisations” and utilizing tariffs to pressure Mexico’s authorities to summation enforcement of irregular postulation crossed the border.

In a statement, the Treasury Department said the banks were the archetypal to beryllium targeted nether caller pieces of authorities – the Fentanyl Sanctions Act and the FEND Off Fentanyl Act – passed to grow its quality to people wealth laundering related to opioid trafficking.

The sanctions would artifact transfers betwixt the targeted Mexican banks and US banks, though it was not instantly wide however far-reaching the limits would be.

In a statement, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent accused the banks of “enabling the poisoning of countless Americans by moving wealth connected behalf of cartels, making them captious cogs successful the fentanyl proviso chain”.

But Mexico’s Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit responded to the sanctions by saying it had yet to person conclusive grounds justifying them.

“We privation to beryllium clear: If we person conclusive accusation proving illicit activities by these 3 fiscal institutions, we volition enactment to the fullest grade of the law,” the Finance Ministry said.

“However, to date, we person nary accusation successful this regard.”

CIBanco did not instantly respond to the allegations. The US Treasury Department accused it of being connected to wealth laundering by the Beltran-Leyva Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Gulf Cartel.

Intercam, which is besides accused of having connections to the CJNG cartel, besides did not respond.

Meanwhile, the brokerage steadfast Vector, which was linked to wealth laundering by the Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel, said the US claims tying its operations to cause traffickers were false.

“Vector categorically rejects immoderate accusation that compromises its organization integrity,” the institution said successful a statement, adding that it would cooperate to clarify the situation.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies