PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian and U.S. anti-drug agencies have uncovered a network that authorities say uses cryptocurrency to launder money for Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel, officials from both countries said Friday.Meas Vyrith, secretary-general of Cambodia’s National Authority for Combating Drugs, told The Associated Press that his office had confiscated about $7 million in cryptocurrency linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful criminal conglomerate designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the Trump administration.He said Cambodian anti-drug police working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration also made several arrests and seized assets, drug laboratories and storage facilities. Authorities also confiscated over 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of illegal drugs and more than one metric ton (2,200 pounds) of precursor chemicals used to produce them.
Law enforcement agents raided four locations in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and neighboring Kandal province from Aug. 1 to 5, he said.“Collaborative efforts involving DEA offices in Phnom Penh and New Jersey successfully uncovered a local network laundering cryptocurrency on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement Thursday.The Sinaloa Cartel has become a major producer of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the U.S. The group has obtained precursor chemicals, including from China, to produce fentanyl in Mexico and smuggle it into the U.S.
