US Expands Drug Trafficking Sanctions, Issues New Designations
The U.S. announced a new effort this week to modernize and expand U.S. sanctions authorities against transnational criminal groups, including drug traffickers and their enablers. The initiative, outlined in a Dec. 15 executive order, will build on existing U.S. authorities under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act by allowing Treasury to more efficiently sanction groups that traffic synthetic opioids and precursor chemicals, a senior administration official said. “The new EO will give Treasury greater flexibility, speed and power to sanction those within the global drug trade,” the official told reporters Dec. 15.
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Although the “vast majority" of counter narcotics sanctions are carried out under the Kingpin Act, that authority is about 20 years old and needed updating to reflect the ways in which “the nature of drug trafficking has changed dramatically,” the official said. These groups no longer have “hierarchical kingpin-style structures,” the White House said in a fact sheet, and their financial facilitators often no longer have “even informal” relationships with the groups’ leaders.
This has diminished the effectiveness of some U.S. sanctions programs, the official said. “Cartels operate in a more diffusive and decentralized way,” the official said, “hindering our ability to build comprehensive sanctions packages on drug traffickers and the facilitation networks using the traditional kingpin model.”
To update its sanctions, the Treasury Department worked with other agencies to develop the executive order, which “reflects the new realities of 21st century drug trade,” the official said. The order will allow Treasury to “target any foreign person engaged in drug trafficking activities, regardless of their significance, or whether they're linked to a specific kingpin or cartel.” It authorizes traditional financial sanctions as well as an “additional menu of non-blocking sanctions,” including investment, loan and travel restrictions, the official said. A second executive order created a U.S. Council on Transnational Organized Crime, which will help coordinate agency efforts to counter criminal groups.
The new sanctions authorities will also allow Treasury to target drug traffickers involved in “other transnational crimes,” the official said, including human smuggling. “We're increasingly seeing that a lot of the drug trafficking organizations take on these other criminal activities, because they control large swaths of territory,” the person said. “So that's one of the new dynamics.”
Treasury also issued its first set of designations under the new authority, sanctioning 10 people and 15 entities for their ties to drug trafficking. The people and entities help traffic fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin, Treasury said, and include several Chinese companies, a Brazilian crime group, and Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers.