Drug-Related Assets

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The U.S. Department of Justice believes that seizing assets from Mexican drug cartels can generally help combat cross-border murder, kidnapping, robbery, etc.  Through the person of the Criminal Division’s Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, the Department of Justice reiterated its desire to seize the illicit assets of illegal narco-traffickers.

Assistant Attorney General Breuer stated at a July 22, 2009 conference, that U.S. asset forfeiture and money laundering laws gave authorities the necessary tools to trace and then seize illicit drug-related assets.  He stressed the importance of disrupting the finances of narco-traffickers because their existence was fueled by large sums of cash.  The Assistant Attorney General also said that prosecutors should conduct financial investigations and add asset forfeiture claims to indictments in their criminal cases.

He additionally stated in a July 9, 2009 hearing before a committee of the U.S.House of Representatives, that: “… seizing the financial infrastructure of the cartels undermines their very existence“.  During the Assistant Attorney General’s July 9 and July 22 statements, he specifically mentioned Operation Xcellerator, which had targeted the Sinaloa drug cartel.  A May 17, 2007 news release also discussed Sinaloa narco-trafficking.  It.claimed that Ismael Zambada Garcia, (as a supposed Sinaloa trafficker), had laundered drug monies via the following financial network:

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Continue Reading A Strategy Of Seizing Sinaloa Drug Cartel Assets

Narco-traffickers who conduct their illicit activities across the U.S.-Mexican border may fall under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (21 U.S.C. § 1901-1908, 8 U.S.C. § 1182) and Executive Order 12978 of October 21, 1995.  Assets are frozen under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (“the Kingpin Act”), if they are subject to…

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) is the focus of this “Asset Search News Roundup”.  OFAC administers economic and trade sanctions against international drug traffickers, terrorists and certain countries under Presidential national emergency powers or federal laws.  In order to impose such economic sanctions, OFAC or other governmental authorities search…

The following occurred over a four month period during 2002, and has been supplied by an investigator I have worked with.  Some of it has been changed / sanitized for privacy reasons:

The Tax Fraud

As part of his tax fraud, “Mr. Wallace” contacted a Cayman Island bank by mail in order to open…

“I’m out of the asset forfeiture business and Title-III wiretaps too”, Donnie remarked as we discussed the Drug Enforcement Administration’s on-going effort to find hidden assets related to drug trafficking and other crime.  Donnie had retired from the DEA after serving twenty-one years as a Special Agent.  Now he was deployed to the…