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US targets alleged cartel smuggling 'gatekeeper' with sanctions
The Cartel del Noreste is notorious for violent practices, extortion, and trafficking in weapons
The US Treasury Department announced sanctions on three individuals and two casinos due to alleged connections with Mexico's Cartel del Noreste, a criminal organisation designated as a terrorist group last year by the Trump administration.
The US has increased its efforts to clamp down on the Cartel del Noreste, a successor to the Zetas, notorious for dealing in weapons, drugs, and human trafficking, as well as its violent activities and extortion operations.
This group is primarily based in Nuevo Laredo, the most active commercial port on the US-Mexico border.
Included among the entities sanctioned is Casino Centenario, located in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
The US alleges that this casino serves as both a storage location for drugs and a facility for money laundering through gambling.
The Treasury has also penalised Diamante Casino, based in Tampico, a northern city in Tamaulipas, which also manages an online betting platform.
Sanctions were implemented against prominent facilitators, such as Eduardo Javier Islas Valdez, accused of managing the cartel's human smuggling operations into Texas, and lawyer Juan Pablo Penilla Rodríguez, cited for his illicit support to the cartel.
Remarkably, activist Jesús Reymundo Ramos is also on the list. The Treasury Department identified him as an operative paid to spread cartel misinformation while pretending to advocate for human rights.
US sanctions aim to freeze the assets of those targeted within the United States and prevent people from conducting business with them in the country.
In March 2023, Ramos claimed that accusations linking him to the cartel were orchestrated by the Mexican army and government, which he denied.
An independent investigation later found that his phone had been infected by Pegasus spyware in 2020.
As per US authorities, Penilla Rodríguez aided a leader of Los Zetas, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, known as Z-40, who was extradited to the US last year alongside his brother and the group's head, Omar Treviño Morales, and 27 others.
