January 10, 2012, 11:31 AM.

Treasury Sanctions 3 Drug Traffickers Tied To Sinaloa Cartel.

By Samuel Rubenfeld
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Tuesday it designated three people with ties to the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel as narcotics traffickers under the Kingpin Act.

Mexican policemen display $15.3 million in U.S. currency seized from the Sinaloa cartel in Tijuana, Mexico, during a press conference in Mexico City on Nov. 22, 2011. OFAC named Mexican nationals Oscar Alvarez Zepeda and Joel Valdez Benites, and Colombian national Carlos Mario Torres Hoyos, saying they provide “material support to the drug trafficking activities” of Chapo Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“Today marks the fourth time in the past year that OFAC has targeted and exposed the support structures of the organization led by Chapo Guzman, the world’s most powerful drug trafficker,” said Adam J. Szubin, director of OFAC, in a statement.

Zepeda’s brother was previously designated as a drug trafficker, and they’re both Chapo Guzman’s relatives, OFAC said.

Treasury said all three are also tied to Colombian drug trafficker Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa, who was designated under the Kingpin Act in February 2011 along with 70 other individuals and entities. Cifuentes Villa was indicted in February 2011 in a New York federal court on drug-trafficking charges, and earlier charged in a Florida federal court with drug trafficking and money laundering.

Todd Merer, a lawyer for Cifuentes Villa, said his client is a fugitive.

Treasury said in the statement it has designated more than 1,000 individuals and entities under the Kingpin Act since 2000. The full list of actions taken by OFAC on Tuesday is here.

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