For many years, drug cartels in Mexico have used the United States as not only its main market for fentanyl trafficking, but also to launder their profits.
Financial institutions estimated that last year alone at least $1.4 billion in transactions were linked to these two criminal organizations.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) released a financial trend analysis identifying fentanyl-related illicit transactions tied to Mexico's two largest cartels.
In its 2024 report, FinCEN revealed that 89% of suspicious activity reports related to fentanyl came from depository institutions or money services businesses.
But according to documents obtained by MILENIO, the relationship between Mexican cartels and Chinese businesses involved in the fentanyl supply chain goes beyond the sale of just precursor chemicals.
The report also revealed that cartels and associated chemical brokers use front companies, money mules and U.S.-based intermediaries to purchase fentanyl precursor chemicals from Chinese-based suppliers.
The scheme not only cleans the money but allows the goods to be resold, leaving behind minimal traces of the laundering operation. »
