FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
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March 3, 2005
JS-2290
Treasury Designates Four Companies Tied to Jamaican Kingpin
The U.S. Department of the Treasury today identified four companies associated with Jamaican national, Leebert Ramcharan, who was named by President Bush as a drug kingpin on June 1, 2004. The companies were added to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) list of persons designated pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act).
"Today's action is against four key holding companies helping to prop up the financial network of Jamaican kingpin Leebert Ramcharan," said OFAC Director Robert Werner. "The Treasury is committed to exposing the companies controlled by drug kingpins in Jamaica and around the world."
Jamaica is a leading transit country for South American cocaine. The companies designated today are the Caribbean Beach Park, Caribbean Showplace Ltd, Ramcharan Brothers Ltd and Ramcharan Ltd. Today's action prohibits all financial and commercial transactions between the designated entities and any U.S. person and freezes any assets found in the United States.
"This action is the result of close coordination between OFAC and the Drug Enforcement Administration," Werner noted.
Today's action brings the total number of Tier I and Tier II Kingpins under the Kingpin Act to 164: 48 drug kingpins worldwide, 34 companies in Mexico, Peru and the Caribbean, and 82 other individuals in Mexico, Colombia and the Caribbean.
This action is part of the ongoing interagency effort of the Treasury, Justice, State, Defense, and Homeland Security Departments, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Administration to carry out the Kingpin Act. Signed into law on December 3, 1999, the Kingpin Act applies economic sanctions against narcotics traffickers on a worldwide basis. The Kingpin Act was modeled after Executive Order 12978 which applies economic sanctions against narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia, and which is also administered by OFAC.
A list of the companies and their addresses can be found here: http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/actions/20050303.shtml
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