The U.S. Justice Department is increasingly targeting corrupt Mexican money brokers in an attempt to disrupt the financial networks used to launder cartel drug proceeds via cryptocurrency and other means, the Associated Press reported.

Recent prosecutions of four defendants extradited from Mexico to the United States shine a light on shadowy financial channels used by Mexican drug traffickers. The individuals are accused of transferring drug proceeds, including by arranging for cash pickups in U.S. cities before money is concealed and moved across the border, often via digital assets, the AP said. 

The prosecutions indicate that Jalisco New Generation Cartel and other drug-trafficking syndicates are now embracing cryptocurrency as a vehicle to move value over the border, according to the report.  

“There’s bulk cash smuggling that has been going on since the beginning of time, and then also sort of the newer trend of taking the cash, buying cryptocurrency, and then trading that cryptocurrency,” said A. Tysen Duva, the assistant attorney general overseeing the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, in the report. 

Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, Mexico has turned over more than 90 suspected cartel members who were wanted in the United States for narcotics trafficking, human smuggling, and money laundering, the news outlet said. Justice Department officials are seeking cooperation from the defendants in an effort to bolster cases against cartel leaders. 

Prosecutors “want to hear on the distribution side how it works, who is involved, and seek additional indictments, and on the money laundering side, exactly the methods that they are using to get the money out of the United States through the U.S. banks,” Duva told the AP. 

Read more at the Associated Press