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, said Cambodian authorities are further investigating money laundering operations by the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful criminal conglomerate designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the Trump administration.
Cambodian anti-drug police working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had made several arrests and seized assets, drug laboratories and storage facilities them at four locations in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and neighboring Kandal province from Aug. 1 to 5, He said.
They 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.
Meas Vyrith also said that U.S. officials had seized about $7 million in cryptocurrency linked to the cartel in an earlier law enforcement operation in New Jersey and suspects in that case are now being sought in Cambodia.
