The Office of Foreign Assets Control published the formal notice of an October 13 sanctions action in today’s Federal Register, adding persons linked to Cartel del Noreste to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. All property and interests in property of the designated persons that are subject to United States jurisdiction are blocked, and United States persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.
The notice designates four individuals under Executive Order 14059, on foreign persons involved in the global illicit drug trade, with three of them also designated under the counterterrorism authority of Executive Order 13224 as amended. The stated grounds include acting for or on behalf of Cartel del Noreste and providing financial, material or technological support to it. Nine entities are designated alongside them, concentrated in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas and Anahuac, Nuevo Leon: construction firms, road and asphalt companies, fuel and propane distributors, a real estate developer, a horse raising operation, and a restaurant and racetrack business, each listed as owned, controlled or directed by, or acting for, a designated person or the cartel.
Publication in the Federal Register is the step that makes the designations citable for compliance purposes. The practical audience is not the cartel but the companies and banks around it: the named front companies are now screening hits, and the secondary sanctions risk noted against most entries extends that exposure to non United States counterparties. Two further OFAC notices were published in the same issue and are noted in today’s roundup.