The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated four Mexican nationals operating through the port of Manzanillo as pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act).
The Treasury said all are members of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), which is “responsible for trafficking a significant proportion of the fentanyl and other deadly drugs that enter the United States.”
The Treasury said the four men “materially assist in, or provide financial or technological support” to the CJNG and “help coordinate CJNG’s drug trafficking operations through the port of Manzanillo and maintain contact with cocaine sources of supply in Colombia.” The Treasury said the four report to Julio Alberto Castillo Rodriguez, the son-in-law of CJNG leader Ruben Oseguera Cervantes (a.k.a. “Mencho”).
In a press release, the Treasury also noted that the state of Colima has one of Mexico’s highest per capita homicide rates, “fueled in part by the CJNG’s local drug trafficking operation.”