Sheinbaum clarifies meaning of OFAC sanctions
Original reporting: Tribuna Sonora
What happened
President Claudia Sheinbaum said U.S. Treasury sanctions and financial irregularities do not automatically establish organized-crime ties or trigger a criminal complaint.
Reporting and context
President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) do not, by themselves, establish that the people named have ties to organized crime.
According to Tribuna Sonora, Sheinbaum was asked whether Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office should investigate Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda and her former husband, Carlos Torres Torres, who was named in the U.S. sanctions. She did not issue a specific opinion on Ávila Olmeda and instead explained how Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit handles irregular financial activity.
Sheinbaum cited recent sanctions involving two banks and a brokerage house. She said irregularities had been found in some accounts, but that authorities had not found evidence linking those institutions to criminal organizations. Tribuna Sonora reported that she also said account holders can explain the origin of their funds to the Financial Intelligence Unit and that freezing an account does not automatically mean a criminal complaint will be filed.
The president added that some people whose accounts were recently frozen already had case files with prosecutors, although she emphasized that this was not true in every case.