FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

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The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today added the names of new Cali drug cartel leaders Joaquin Mario Valencia Trujillo and Guillermo Valencia Trujillo to its list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs).  This action also targets their network of 28 front companies and 28 individuals.  SDNTs are subject to the economic sanctions imposed against Colombian drug cartels in Executive Order 12978.

The drug cartel businesses added to the list of SDNTs today are all determined to be owned or controlled by Cali cartel leaders Joaquin Mario and Guillermo Valencia Trujillo.  OFAC has cooperated over the past two years with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida and Operation Panama Express, a multi-agency drug task force based out of Tampa, Florida, in the designation of Joaquin Mario Valencia Trujillo and his network of front companies.  

The OFAC action blocks the assets of SDNTs found in U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits Americans from doing business with them, further exposing, isolating, and incapacitating Colombian drug cartels and their agents.  The network of 28 Cali drug cartel businesses announced today includes a prominent paso fino horse farm, Criadero La Luisa, an industrial paper manufacturer, Unipapel S.A., a plastics company, Geoplasticos S.A., a maritime services provider, Gran Muelle S.A., and five financial firms, Compania de Fomento Mercantil S.A., Credisa S.A., Finve S.A., Gestora Mercantil S.A., and Unidas S.A., all located in Colombia. 

Also included in the new SDNT list are several commercial paper businesses, maritime agencies, real estate, mining, sporting and consulting companies.  These 28 front companies join 312 other Colombian drug cartel businesses on the SDNT list.

This action is part of the ongoing interagency effort of the Treasury, Justice and State Departments to carry out Executive Order 12978, signed on October 21, 1995, which applies economic sanctions against Colombia’s drug cartels. The assets of a total of 824 Colombian drug cartel businesses and individuals are now blocked under the 1995 Executive Order; and those businesses and individuals are prohibited from American financial and business dealings. The list of SDNTs now includes 14 kingpins from Colombia’s Cali, North Valle, and North Coast drug cartels.

The list of businesses and individuals named by OFAC as SDNTs today is attached and available at www.treas.gov/ofac, as is the entire list of SDNTs.  Today’s list will be published in the Federal Register at a later date.

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