Sept 2, 2013 -Sinaloa Cartel: "Kingpin Act" sanctions U.S. Treasury July 2013 (Wall Street Journal)

Jul 30, 2013Risk & Compliance

Treasury Slaps Sanctions on a Sinaloa Cartel-linked Notary

 
The U.S. Treasury Department said Tuesday it placed Kingpin Act sanctions on three people and three businesses linked to a Sinaloa Cartel leader.

By Samuel Rubenfeld

The U.S. Treasury Department said Tuesday it placed Kingpin Act sanctions on three people and three businesses linked to a Sinaloa Cartel leader.

Among those targeted Tuesday by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control was Jose Antonio Nunez Bedoya, a Mexican attorney and notary public who Treasury said creates front companies to help conceal and launder assets on behalf of Ismael Zambada Garcia, who is a Sinaloa leader, as well as members of Zambada Garcia’s family and other cartel leaders.

Nunez Bedoya incorporated two companies, including a day care center, on Zambada’s behalf; they were targeted with sanctions in May 2007. He also notarized real estate purchases by the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, and his second wife, who was placed under sanctions in September 2012.

The companies placed under sanctions Tuesday were Parque Acuatico Los Cascabeles, a water park; Centro Comercial y Habitacional Lomas, a shopping mall; and Rancho Agricola Ganadero Los Mezquites, a cattle ranch, Treasury said.

Nunez Bedoya also incorporated and notarized the companies, Treasury said.

“The Sinaloa Cartel cannot hide behind front companies like a water park or agricultural business,” said Doug Coleman, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge, in a statement. “We are working with OFAC to expose these traffickers’ front companies for what they really are — illegal enterprises that fuel the drug trade, its violence and corruption.”

Treasury also placed sanctions on Tomasa Garcia Rios and Monica Janeth Verdugo Garcia, the wife and daughter of a drug trafficker who was killed in January 2009 by the Mexican military.

They own the water park and the cattle ranch, Treasury said.

Write to Samuel Rubenfeld at Samuel.Rubenfeld@wsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @srubenfeld.