WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Thursday imposed sanctions on senior members of the armed wing of a Mexican drug cartel that operates on border territories in and around Chihuahua, Mexico.
Five Mexican citizens and two companies linked to La Linea, a violent Mexico-based drug trafficking organization that smuggles fentanyl and other synthetic drugs into the U.S. on behalf of the transnational Juarez Cartel, were hit with economic sanctions Thursday.
The latest action is meant to stem a major source of the fentanyl coming into the U.S; the powerful opioid, is the deadliest drugs in the U.S.
today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that drug overdose deaths in the U.S.
have increased more than sevenfold from 2015 to 2021, though the agency reported a 3% decline in the number of drug overdose deaths this year. Over the past two years, Treasury has sanctioned more than 350 people and firms connected to drug trafficking, from cartel leaders to labs and suppliers. Mexico and China are the primary sources of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the U.
S., according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is tasked with combating illicit drug trafficking. Nearly all the precursor chemicals that are needed to make fentanyl come from China.
La Linea and the Juarez Cartel are known for inflicting violence on innocent people, and U.S. authorities have tried to pursue them — in July 2022, a North Dakota federal judge ordered La Linea.