The U.S. Treasury Department Thursday announced it's freezing the assets of alleged Medellin, Colombia-based drug trafficker Francisco Antonio Florez Upegui and more than a dozen other individuals and entitities thought to be a part of a drug trafficking network.
Florez Upegui and his associates have close ties to the Oficina de Envigado, a violent Medellin-based organized crime group that engages in large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering activities in Colombia, the Treasury said in a statement Thursday.
Treasury's action freezes any assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits all financial and commercial transactions by any U.S. person with the designated companies and individuals.
"Francisco Antonio Florez Upegui and his extensive network of drug trafficking associates, front companies, and business managers rely on their financial networks for survival," said Adam Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. "We will continue to go after these drug trafficking networks and expose their support systems, forcing them out of the international financial system."
The Treasury said Thursday's "designation" is part of the ongoing interagency effort by the Departments of the Treasury, Justice, State and Homeland Security to implement Executive Order 12978, which is designed to help the federal government target Columbia's drug cartels. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control worked in close coordination on the investigation with Drug Enforcement Administration offices in Miami and Bogota. (Dow Jones)
