Treasury Sanctions Two Guatemalan Drug Trafficking Organizations Backing Mexican Narco-Terrorist Cartels
The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced in Washington on November 13 that it has sanctioned Guatemala's Los Mendoza Drug Trafficking Organization and the Los Huistas DTO for supporting Mexico's two largest narco-terrorist groups, the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), both of which the Trump Administration designated last year as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).
Treasury said Los Mendoza and Los Huistas control strategic trafficking corridors along Guatemala's borders with Honduras and Mexico, facilitating the receipt, storage, protection and cross-border movement of narcotics destined for the United States and other markets, making them indispensable logistics partners for the two Mexican cartels. Targeting these facilitators disrupts critical nodes in the supply chains that move fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs.
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the action exposes the ties between politically influential Guatemalan criminal organizations and Mexican foreign terrorist organizations that facilitate the flow of deadly narcotics into the United States, and that Treasury will continue to target the criminal networks that enable the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG to traffic drugs across U.S. borders.
Founded in the 1980s, Los Mendoza is one of Guatemala's oldest and most powerful criminal organizations, a family-based group that supports the Sinaloa Cartel through border crossings, clandestine airstrips, storage facilities and protection networks in the departments of San Marcos, Huehuetenango and Peten, and is also involved in contract killings and money laundering, Treasury said. Los Huistas, active since the 1990s, is a critical link in the cocaine supply chain from South America through Mexico into the United States and was previously designated by OFAC under Executive Order 14059 on March 18, 2022.
The action was taken under Executive Order 14059 and Executive Order 13224, as amended. In a concurrent action, the Department of State is designating Los Lorenzanas as an FTO and an SDGT. As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the designated organizations in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from transactions involving them.
(Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury)
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国财政部大楼（联邦核心固定图库）。 / Photo: The U.S. Department of the Treasury building (federal core asset pack).
