The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday designated more than a dozen individuals and entities linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, targeting two separate networks accused of fentanyl trafficking and money laundering, including one that allegedly converted bulk U.S. drug cash into cryptocurrency for transfer to cartel leadership in Mexico.

The action, coordinated with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexico’s financial intelligence unit was carried out under executive orders targeting narcotics proliferation and terrorism financing. The Sinaloa cartel was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department in February 2025.

According to U.S. officials, Armando de Jesus Ojeda Aviles leads the first of the two networks, operating out of Sinaloa, Mexico. OFAC said Ojeda Aviles is affiliated with Los Chapitos, the faction led by two sons of imprisoned cartel founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and took over as the primary money launderer for that faction following the 2023 murder of predecessor Mario Alberto Jimenez Castro, who had previously been designated by OFAC.

Ojeda Aviles purportedly coordinates the collection of bulk cash in the United States representing fentanyl and other drug sale proceeds, then facilitates its conversion into cryptocurrency for transfer to cartel leadership in Mexico. OFAC said he is also directly involved in overseeing narcotics shipments into the United States.

Three associates were designated alongside him. Jesus Alonso Aispuro Felix was identified as the network’s chief money broker, responsible for brokering bulk transfers of drug proceeds through digital currency addresses. Rodrigo Alarcon Palomares was described as facilitating money pickups in the United States. He was indicted in April 2024 in federal court in Colorado on three counts of laundering drug proceeds through cryptocurrency, Treasury said.

Alfredo Orozco Romero, described as a security advisor to Ojeda Aviles and debt collector on cocaine shipments, was also designated, along with a Mexican security company and a restaurant in Chihuahua he allegedly controls through family members acting as proxies. 

The second network is headed by Jesus Gonzalez Penuelas, whom Treasury described as a fugitive responsible for producing and distributing methamphetamine and heroin to the United States since 2007 and a major distributor of cocaine and fentanyl. OFAC said he operates primarily from Sinaloa with U.S.-based distribution cells in California, Texas, Colorado, Washington, Utah, and Nevada.

Gonzalez Penuelas was previously sanctioned under the Kingpin Act in May 2021 and faces federal indictments in the Southern District of California and the District of Colorado dating to 2017 and 2018. The DEA and State Department have each offered $5 million rewards for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

The designations come amid a broader U.S. crackdown on the Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug-trafficking groups.

Last month, U.S. prosecutors charged the governor of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, the mayor of Culiacan, a sitting Mexican senator, and seven other current and former officials with running a drug-trafficking conspiracy with the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for cash bribes. Mexican authorities have since frozen the bank accounts of the accused and the Sinaloan governor, Rubén Rocha Moya, has temporarily stepped down, El País said. 

Earlier this month, U.S. authorities arrested Gerardo Merida Sanchez, who served as public security secretary in Rocha’s government from September 2023 through December 2024, and Enrique Diaz, a former Sinaloa finance minister. Both men are charged with conspiring with the Sinaloa Cartel to traffic massive quantities of drugs into the United States in exchange for bribes and other support, according to Reuters. 

Mexican security forces on Wednesday arrested four local officials in Morelos state as part of a nationwide crackdown on extortion rackets. Among those detained were an acting mayor and a former mayor from the state. The current mayor of the city of Cuautla, an opposition figure accused of ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, remained at large and is being sought, Bloomberg reported.