Treasury Targets Drug Trafficking Networks in Colombia and Mexico

July 15, 2010

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated nine individuals and 13 entities located in Colombia, Mexico and Panama as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs) pursuant to Executive Order 12978. These individuals and entities are designated today for providing material support to the narcotics trafficking activities of, or for acting for or on behalf of, Colombian national Pedro Antonio Bermudez Suaza (aka “El Arquitecto”) or other designated individuals or entities. Today’s action prohibits U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions with these individuals and entities and freezes any assets the designees have under U.S. jurisdiction.
 
Bermudez Suaza, whose criminal expertise is smuggling cocaine via aircraft, was designated by Treasury as an SDNT in May 2009 following his capture by Mexican authorities in late 2008. He was extradited from Mexico to the United States in June 2010 to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Bermudez Suaza has also been indicted for drug trafficking in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Also in June 2010, Colombian authorities announced the seizure of approximately $76 million in assets belonging to Bermudez Suaza obtained with illicit proceeds from drug trafficking in Medellin and other cities in Colombia, including residences, commercial property and aircraft.
 
"Today’s designations will expose and dismantle the remnants of Bermudez Suaza’s international network of conspirators, front companies, and assets, which have remained hidden for years,” said OFAC Director Adam J. Szubin.
 
Among the individuals designated today are Mexican nationals Andre Rodriguez Fernandez and Pablo Agustin Meouchi Saade. Rodriguez Fernandez is a fugitive from drug trafficking charges in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where he was indicted in conjunction with Bermudez Suaza. Meouchi Saade manages properties in Mexico for Bermudez Suaza. Seven Colombian nationals were also designated today, including Maria Monserrat Luque Aguilera, Diego Aristizabal Mejia, Carlos Manuel Ramirez Duque, and John Jairo Pelaez Lopez, who act as front persons for Bermudez Suaza. Three of today’s designees – Luis Bernardo Mejia Molina, Martha Elena Tobon Calle, and Monica Maria Castro Jaramillo– have ties to both Bermudez Suaza and his deceased drug trafficking partner, Olmedo Gomez Cruz.
 
Thirteen companies were also designated today. In Mexico, real estate management companies, Grupo Iruna, S.A. de C.V. and Grupo Jezinne, S.A. de C.V., and corn products companies Industrializadora Purecorn, S.A. de C.V. and Masa Facil, S.A. de C.V. were designated today. In Panama, asset holding companies Roseville Investments S.A. and Tremaine Corp. were designated. In Colombia, the designated entities include Renta Liquida S.A.S., which was created in September 2009 for the purpose of evading U.S. sanctions and to collect rents from numerous Medellin commercial properties owned or controlled by Bermudez Suaza. Renta Liquida S.A.S. fills the role played by several companies that were put out of business as a result of sanctions applied to Bermudez Suaza’s organization in May 2009. OFAC also designated Broker CMS El Agrario S.A., an agricultural company located in Envigado, Colombia managed by Diego Aristizabal Mejia and Luis Bernardo Mejia Molina.
 
Today’s designation, in coordination with the Drug Enforcement Administration, is part of the ongoing interagency effort by the Departments of the Treasury, Justice, State and Homeland Security to implement Executive Order 12978, which applies financial sanctions against Colombia’s drug cartels.

• Bermudez Suaza Organization July 2010 (PDF 88.1 KB)