Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News 

The Mexican authorities have blocked 330 bank accounts allegedly used by El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel.

Santiago Nieto, the Head of the Unit of Finance Intelligence of the Tax Office Secretary of Mexico, reported that 330 bank accounts allegedly linked with the Sinaloa cartel have been blocked.

Nieto said the decision to block the account came thanks to information provided by Mexico’s intelligence organisations. The amount of money in the accounts was not revealed.

Nieto, who participated in the conference “El Lavado de Dinero y la 4T” (Money Laundering and the Fourth Transformation) at the Doctor’s College, said that in the first eleven months of the current administration, many bank accounts allegedly linked with drug trafficking have been blocked.

The accounts valued 1 billion MXN (39,863,500 GBP), around a fifth of the more than 5 billion MXN (199,317,500 GBP) blocked on the request of the Finance Intelligence Unit.

Nieto claimed that bank accounts allegedly linked with the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel have been blocked too, but did not reveal the number of accounts.

He said the blocking of the accounts is part of a new strategy to combat organised crime by attacking their finance structures and avoiding violent confrontations.

According to Nieto, by 15th November, 9,345 bank accounts were blocked linked with 1,221 alleged criminals, among them the former Director of Mexican Petrol, Emilio Lozoya Austin.

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