The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on cartel-linked individuals and companies while issuing a new alert to American banks, targeting the Jalisco New Generation Cartel's sprawling fuel theft operations, a revenue stream that now rivals drug trafficking in scale and ambition.
The action marks the latest move in the Trump administration's sustained financial offensive against Mexico's most powerful criminal organization. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two Mexican men and nine companies spanning transportation, financial services, and real estate, all accused of ties to a CJNG-linked fuel theft ring that generates tens of millions of dollars annually for the cartel.
Separately, Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an alert directing financial institutions to watch for red flags tied to fuel smuggling from the United States into Mexico, schemes that also involve Mexican tax evasion. Together, the sanctions and the FinCEN alert represent a two-pronged effort to choke the cartel's access to the legitimate financial system.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the action as a warning that the cartels have diversified well past narcotics. As CBS News reported, Bessent said:
"Today's action highlights the extent to which Mexico's cartels are expanding beyond traditional drug trafficking to generate revenue for their criminal organizations, which continue to traffic deadly drugs that kill Americans."
The scope of the fuel operation is staggering. Mexican authorities have seized millions of gallons of stolen diesel, gasoline, and petroleum distillates from states bordering Texas in recent years. The cartel's method is blunt: organized crews tap pipelines, divert fuel to service stations forced to buy from the cartel, or sell stolen product directly on the streets. CJNG is accused of operating its own gas stations as part of the scheme.
A separate but related Treasury action, detailed by Breitbart, sanctioned three Mexican nationals and two Mexico-based entities tied to CJNG's combined fentanyl trafficking and fuel theft network. That reporting identified CJNG cell leader Cesar Morfin Morfin, known as "Primito," and noted that two hazardous materials transportation companies were used to smuggle stolen crude oil across the border, mislabeled as "waste oil" or hazardous material to dodge U.S. taxes and regulations. Bessent described the fuel and crude oil operations as "cash cows for CJNG's narco-terrorist enterprise."
The Drug Enforcement Administration has acknowledged that CJNG now operates in 21 of Mexico's 32 states, surpassing even the Sinaloa Cartel, which is estimated to hold a presence in 19 states. President Trump designated CJNG and five other Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a classification that unlocked additional enforcement tools.
That designation took on new urgency after the killing of CJNG leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho", in a military operation in February. His death did not produce stability. It produced carnage.
In the weeks that followed, cartel gunmen launched a wave of attacks on businesses, set vehicles ablaze, and threw up road blockades across multiple states. More than 70 people were killed in the violence, including 25 Mexican National Guard members. The brutality underscored how deeply CJNG has embedded itself in Mexican territory, and how destabilizing the loss of a single leader can be when no legitimate authority fills the vacuum.
On April 27, Mexican Navy special forces arrested Audias Flores Silva, the cartel's second-in-command, in the western state of Nayarit. The operation relied on intelligence provided by U.S. agencies. Flores Silva, known by the alias "The Gardener," had been considered a possible successor to El Mencho.
He now faces expanded charges from a U.S. federal grand jury accusing him of methamphetamine trafficking and conspiracy to launder money. Those charges were broadened last month, signaling that American prosecutors are building a deeper case against the cartel's surviving leadership.
Earlier sanctions actions by the Trump Treasury Department had already targeted CJNG's upper ranks directly. AP News reported that five senior CJNG members were sanctioned, including El Mencho himself before his death, with their U.S. assets frozen and American citizens barred from doing business with them. Among those sanctioned was Ricardo Ruiz Velasco, a suspect in the killing of social media influencer Valeria Márquez, who was allegedly his romantic partner.
The FinCEN alert to banks may prove to be the most consequential piece of the announcement. Sanctions freeze assets and block transactions involving named individuals and entities. But a FinCEN alert casts a wider net, putting every American financial institution on notice to scrutinize transactions that fit the profile of cartel fuel smuggling and tax evasion.
The practical effect: banks, credit unions, and money service businesses must now flag suspicious activity tied to fuel shipments crossing the southern border. Financial institutions that fail to report such red flags risk their own regulatory exposure. The alert turns the private banking system into an additional layer of enforcement, one that operates continuously, not just when prosecutors file charges.
For the cartel, this is a problem that guns cannot solve. CJNG can intimidate Mexican gas station owners into buying stolen fuel. It can tap pipelines and blockade roads. But it cannot force a compliance officer at a U.S. bank to ignore a Suspicious Activity Report.
The Treasury actions fit a clear pattern under the Trump administration: treat cartels not as a law enforcement nuisance to be managed, but as terrorist organizations whose financial infrastructure must be dismantled. The foreign terrorist designation, the sanctions waves targeting leadership, the expanded grand jury charges, and now the FinCEN banking alert, each step tightens the financial noose.
The fuel theft dimension adds an important wrinkle. For years, the public conversation about cartels has centered almost exclusively on fentanyl, methamphetamine, and human smuggling. The Treasury's focus on stolen fuel and crude oil smuggling reveals a cartel that functions less like a street gang and more like a vertically integrated criminal conglomerate, one that runs its own gas stations, operates transportation companies, launders money through real estate, and evades taxes on both sides of the border.
That kind of operation does not survive on violence alone. It survives on access to banking, logistics, and commercial infrastructure. Cutting that access is precisely what the sanctions and the FinCEN alert are designed to do.
The Treasury has not publicly identified the two Mexican men or the nine companies sanctioned in the latest action, at least not in the reporting available. The specific red flags outlined in the FinCEN alert have not been detailed publicly either. And the broader question, whether Mexico's government will match American enforcement pressure with its own sustained action, remains unanswered. The arrest of Flores Silva by Mexican Navy special forces, conducted on U.S. intelligence, suggests cooperation at the operational level. Whether that cooperation extends to the political level is another matter.
More than 70 dead after one cartel leader's killing. Millions of gallons of stolen fuel. Tens of millions in annual revenue flowing to an organization the United States has formally labeled a terrorist group. The Treasury's latest action is a step. The scale of the problem demands many more.
When a cartel runs its own gas stations and launders money through real estate firms, it is no longer just a drug gang. It is an enterprise, and the only language it cannot shoot its way past is the language of frozen accounts and blocked wire transfers.
