Oct. 31 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Friday sanctioned five people and two entities for links to “a violent Mexico-based drug trafficking organization.”
Two of the five Mexican nationals sanctioned Friday for their ties to La Linea have previously been indicted in the United States, the Treasury said in a statement.
The group began as an offshoot of the Mexican Juarez Cartel and is responsible “for trafficking fentanyl and other deadly drugs into the United States.”
Accused drug trafficker and La Linea money launderer Heber Nieto Fierro was one of the five individuals hit with U.S. sanctions Friday, along with two Mexican companies he controls that are believed to be involved in drug and human trafficking.
“Today, La Linea operates in Ciudad Juarez, where it has access to drug trafficking and human smuggling routes across the U.S.-Mexico border. La Linea taxes other Mexican drug trafficking organizations to move their merchandise through the Juarez Valley and generates other revenue via synthetic drug trafficking, illegal logging, and car theft in Chihuahua, Mexico. Associates of La Linea are also involved in human trafficking across the United States,” the Treasury said in its statement.
The group is also believed to be responsible for the 2019 murder of nine American citizens, including six children, in the Mexican state of Sonora.
In addition to Nieto Fierro, senior La Linea members Josefa Yadira Carrasco Leyva and Jorge Adrian Ortega Gallegos were sanctioned Friday, along with associates Jesus Salas Aguayo and Adrian Aguayo.
The Treasury’s designations mean all property and bank accounts of those sanctioned are blocked and must be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
“If La Linea continues to directly contribute to the proliferation of deadly fentanyl throughout our communities, Treasury will continue to use every tool in our arsenal to go after their criminal activity,” Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said in the department’s statement.
“The United States, in close coordination with our Mexican partners, remains committed to doing everything we can to hold these groups to account and to disrupt their ability to profit from and ultimately operate these criminal schemes.”
In 2017, the Mexican government arrested La Linea drug cartel leader Miguel Angel Amaya Loya, recovering a stash of narcotics after a raid in the border city of Juarez.
