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The US Treasury Department hit more than a dozen individuals and entities with sanctions on Wednesday, targeting two separate money-laundering networks tied to the Sinaloa Cartel and its fentanyl trafficking operations.
Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, the Trump administration designated the Sinaloa Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2025 and has separately classified fentanyl itself as a “Weapon of Mass Destruction,” as part of an aggressive campaign to choke off the flow of the synthetic opioid into the US (fentanyl is now the deadliest drug in the country, with as little as 2 milligrams capable of being fatal, and the Sinaloa Cartel is behind a huge chunk of the fentanyl pouring into the US, a drug now tied to tens of thousands of American deaths a year). The cartel is run by the sons of jailed kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán (a faction known as Los Chapitos), and it has increasingly turned to cryptocurrency to move money, both to launder US drug proceeds back to Mexico and to buy the precursor chemicals it needs to cook fentanyl, sourced from Chinese suppliers.
What’s going on now: The Treasury Department announced sanctions targeting two distinct cartel networks. The first is led by Armando de Jesús Ojeda Avilés. According to a readout, Avilés stepped into the top money-laundering role for Los Chapitos after the guy who held the job before him was killed in 2023. He allegedly coordinates the collection of bulk cash from US fentanyl and other drug sales before converting it into cryptocurrency to funnel back to the cartel in Mexico. The second network is headed by Jesús González Peñuelas, a fugitive who goes by “Chuy Gonzalez,” and the Treasury says he has been pumping meth and heroin into the US since 2007. Currently, the DEA and State Department are offering $5 million rewards for his capture.
The sanctions also hit a Mexican security firm called Grupo Especial Mamba Negra and a restaurant in Chihuahua called Gorditas Chiwas, both allegedly controlled through front men, and cut all the designated parties off from the US banking system while freezing any US assets. The Treasury also blacklisted specific Ethereum wallet addresses tied to the two networks.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the action as part of the administration’s broader war on the cartels. “As President Trump has made clear, this Administration will not allow narco-terrorists to flood our borders with poison. Treasury will continue to target terrorist cartels and their fentanyl trafficking networks to protect our communities and Keep America Safe.”
The designations were the result of an investigation run by the Homeland Security Task Force and the DEA, and were coordinated directly with Mexico’s financial intelligence unit (the Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera), which ran its own review of the targets’ taxes, finances, and corporate ties on the Mexican side.
