FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today added the names of nine businesses and eight individuals to its list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs). 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 Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, currently incarcerated in a Colombian maximum security prison, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, arrested in Colombia on March 12, and other named SDNTs.

The OFAC action blocks the assets of SDNTs found in U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits Americans from doing business with them, thereby further exposing, isolating, and incapacitating Colombian drug cartels and their agents. The network of nine Cali drug cartel businesses announced today includes eight companies in Colombia and one Colombian-owned business in the U.S.  Businesses named today include several affiliated with William Rodriguez Abadia, who is indicted in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges and whom the Colombian National Police sought to arrest during an operation in February.  Among the businesses named today as SDNTs are: Coopcrear, a front which services cartel business accounts, including payments on-behalf of the cartel’s business Copservir, and its Drogas La Rebaja drugstore chain; Credivida, a front affiliated with the Drogas La Rebaja drugstore chain’s Credirebaja charge card; Seguwra del ValleE.U., a security front owned by William Rodriguez Abadia; and Servicios Myral E.U. and C y S Medios E.U., two additional companies with security functions affiliated with the Rodriguez Orejuela organization. Financial cooperatives, such as Coopcrear named today, are created by the Cali cartel using trusted corporate officers to provide bank account services to its business fronts. Also named today as part of the cartel’s financial network is the Colombian stock brokerage firm Obursatiles S.A. and its U.S. affiliate, Internacional de Divisas S.A., LLC, a money exchange house based in Miami, Florida. Obursatiles S.A. has been blocked pending investigation since February 12.

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 766 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 includes 12 kingpins from Colombia’s Cali, North Valle, and North Coast drug cartels.

The list of SDNTs named today is attached and is available at www.treas.gov/ofac, as is the entire list of SDNTs. A graphic describing the use of Colombian financial cooperatives, such as Coopcrear named today, by the Cali cartel also is available. Today’s list will be published in the Federal Register at a later date.

Cali Chart