Mexican president demands proof after US accuses banks of laundering drug money - Mexico

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, expressed vexation astatine US sanctions against 3 Mexican fiscal institutions accused of laundering cause money, and said the US has not yet provided immoderate grounds of transgression activity.

“Until now, the treasury section has not sent immoderate impervious that indicates determination is wealth laundering,” Sheinbaum said. “We volition enactment if determination is proof.”

She past publically requested the treasury section “send proof, if they person it, truthful we tin travel them successful the process”.

The US treasury section announced connected Wednesday it was placing sanctions connected 3 abstracted Mexican fiscal institutions, accusing them of being utilized to launder wealth for organized crime.

The 3 institutions identified by the treasury’s fiscal crimes portion (FinCen) are the ample commercialized banks CiBanco and Intercam, and the brokerage steadfast Vector Casa de Bolsa. FinCen is accusing them of laundering wealth linked to fentanyl trafficking.

“Financial facilitators similar CiBanco, Intercam, and Vector are enabling the poisoning of countless Americans by moving wealth connected behalf of cartels, making them captious cogs successful the fentanyl proviso chain,” the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said successful a statement.

“Through the archetypal usage of this almighty authority, today’s actions affirm [the] treasury’s committedness to utilizing each tools astatine our disposal to antagonistic the menace posed by transgression and violent organizations trafficking fentanyl and different narcotics.”

Wednesday’s announcement represents a further escalation by the Trump medication towards organized transgression successful Latin America. After Trump’s inauguration, the medication declared a fig of Mexican transgression groups arsenic violent organizations.

Other actions by the US person led to friction betwixt the Mexican authorities and the Trump administration. Earlier this year, the Trump medication imposed 25% punitive tariffs connected galore imports from Mexico, successful an effort to unit the state to halt fentanyl trafficking and migration towards the US.

Additionally, the medication began revoking visas for immoderate Mexican governmental figures, preventing them from traveling to the US. According to reporting by ProPublica, the medication has a database of a fig of politicians accused of having ties to the cause trade, including allies of Sheinbaum.

The treasury section says its actions travel aft acts passed by Congress provided the section further authorization to people wealth laundering networks linked to fentanyl trafficking.

Fentanyl leads to tens of thousands of overdose deaths successful the US each year. The cause is chiefly manufactured successful Mexico by transgression groups utilizing precursor chemicals from China. It is typically pressed into pills, trafficked into the US and distributed nationwide.

According to Sheinbaum, Mexican fiscal probe agencies received accusation from the treasury section regarding the 3 fiscal institutions and transactions with Chinese businesses.

Mexican officials, who viewed the grounds arsenic insufficient, launched their ain probe and besides requested further accusation from the US regarding the transactions.

Sheinbaum says the US did not travel up successful effect to Mexico’s request.

“We are not going to screen for anyone. There is nary impunity,” Sheinbaum said. “But it has to beryllium demonstrated that, effectively, determination was wealth laundering. Not with statements, but with hard evidence.”

The treasury department, successful its release, included antithetic allegations against the institutions.

In 1 instance, the section said, a CiBanco worker created an relationship successful 2023 to launder $10m for a Gulf cartel leader. In different case, Intercam executives successful 2022 allegedly met with suspected members of the New Generation Jalisco cartel “to sermon money-laundering schemes, including transferring funds from China”.

And successful a 3rd example, the section claimed that from 2013 done 2021, a Sinaloa cartel wealth mule laundered $2m from the US to Mexico done the Vector firm.

“CiBanco clarifies that it does not clasp commercialized relations extracurricular of legality, and reiterates the compliance of each guidelines established by the applicable authorities,” CiBanco said successful a connection connected its website. “CiBanco maintains changeless connection with corresponding Mexican and United States authorities and underscores its willingness to collaborate.”

Mexican banks are not the lone fiscal institutions accused by the US of laundering soiled wealth for organized crime.

Last fall, a US slope admitted to helping Colombian criminals launder money. The FinCen probe led to a $1.3bn penalty, the largest punishment against a fiscal instauration successful history.

Last year, the justness section unsealed an indictment, accusing a fig of radical of laundering wealth for the Sinaloa cartel and for “groups linked to Chinese underground banking”.

The multi-year DEA investigation, called Operation Fortune Runner, recovered that the alleged criminals utilized Citibank ATMs successful California to launder cause money.