New York (AFP) - Two alleged leaders of the Mexican drug cartel La Nueva Familia Michoacana have been indicted on heroin trafficking charges in the United States, officials said Thursday.
Rodolfo Maldonado-Bustos, 59, also known as "Don Jose," and Euclides Camacho-Goicochea, 51, aka "El Quilles," were indicted by a federal grand jury in Georgia, the Justice Department said in a statement.
"These cartel members allegedly imported massive amounts of heroin from Mexico to the Atlanta area and elsewhere in the United States," said US Attorney Ryan Buchanan of the Northern District of Georgia.
The indictments of Maldonado-Bustos and Camacho-Goicochea, who are both believed to be living in Mexico, were unsealed after US officials announced economic sanctions against them and other members of La Nueva Familia Michoacana accused of fentanyl trafficking and human smuggling.
The measures from the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) are aimed at stifling a network known for sending illicit drugs from Mexico across the southern US border to Dallas and Houston, as well as to other cities including Chicago and Atlanta, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
"The leaders we're targeting have carried out heinous acts, from controlling drug routes, to arms trafficking, to money laundering, to murder," Yellen said.
"Our sanctions will cut off the cartel leaders from their ill-gotten money and make it harder for them to bring deadly fentanyl to our streets."
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said the indictments and sanctions "demonstrate that in addition to holding cartel leaders accountable for their crimes, we are working together with our partners at the Treasury Department to hit the cartels' criminal operations where it hurts the most -- their profits."
In addition to the OFAC actions, the Treasury Department released an advisory of red flags and trends intended to help US financial institutions detect signs of the illicit fentanyl supply chain.
The advisory will give them the information they need to "go after the criminals perpetrating and profiting off of the opioid epidemic," Yellen said.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, has caused an addiction epidemic in the United States, and is responsible for tens of thousands of overdose deaths a year.
