"Narcotics traffickers often employ corrupt attorneys to disguise and advance their illicit activities," a U.S. Treasury official said
By Stella Dawson
WASHINGTON, Sept 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The United States has frozen the assets of three Mexican lawyers and a real estate company allegedly linked to the international drug cartel Sinaloa, known for its violence and kidnappings.
The Treasury Department said targeting the lawyers with sanctions, which means all their U.S.-based assets must be frozen, is intended to cut off funding sources for a major drug trafficking gang.
"Narcotics traffickers often employ corrupt attorneys to disguise and advance their illicit activities," said Adam J. Szubin, Treasury's Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, in announcing the actions on Thursday.
The sanctions were imposed on three attorneys based in Guadalajara - Jose Avina Bribiesca, Ignacio Gonzalez Hernandez and Janette Iliana Gonzalez Linares - and their company Bona-Habitat. The three act on behalf of another attorney, Juvencio Ignacio Gonzalez Parada, who is a longtime adviser to drug lords and already has been sanctioned, the Treasury Department said.
U.S. officials are tightening the noose on Sinaloa. Earlier this week, police and federal agents raided dozens of businesses in Los Angeles fashion district, which they suspect are part of a massive money laundering operation, converting black market cash into pesos for Mexican drug traffickers.
In July, the U.S. extradited from the Netherlands suspected cartel leader Jose Rodrigo Arechiga-Gamboa, known as Chino Antrax. It said he provided security for drug shipments for one of the world's most wanted drug lords, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who was captured earlier this year.
(Editing by Alisa Tang)
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