FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Office of Public Affairs
(202)622-2960
April 17, 1997

TREASURY RELEASES NAMES OF COLOMBIAN DRUG CARTEL’S NEW FRONTS

The Treasury Department today added to its list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs) the names of 11 businesses and 46 associated individuals that it has determined are acting as fronts for the Cali cartel in Colombia. The 11 newly designated companies are successors to firms previously designated because they were owned or controlled by the Rodriguez Orejuela or Herrera Buitrago families of the Cali cartel.

President Clinton welcomed today’s action, saying, "We’re determined to hit the narco-traffickers where it counts: their pocketbooks and their profits. We will not rest in our effort to hunt down and shut down the international narco-traffickers who target our citizens and our children."

Today’s action alerts American businesses that the successors to SDNT companies should be considered to be SDNTs absent advice to the contrary from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

This action is part of the ongoing interagency effort to carry out President Clinton’s Executive Order 12978, signed on Oct. 21, 1995, which applies economic sanctions against the Cali cartel. These 57 names have been added to the previous SDNT list bringing to a total of 416 the number of businesses and individuals with whom financial and business dealings are prohibited and whose assets are blocked under the 1995 Executive Order. All 416 SDNTs have been determined to be owned or controlled by, or to act for or on behalf of, persons designated in or pursuant to the Order.

The 11 include a large drugstore chain, four pharmaceutical laboratories, the wholesale purchaser for a grocery store chain, an investment firm, a plastics manufacturer, a construction company and two agricultural firms. These entities were previously designated as SDNTs under other names and had reorganized themselves under new names and purported new ownership. Treasury has determined that the kingpins and agents of the Cali cartel continue to exert ultimate control over them. The 46 newly designated individuals all have been determined to act for or on behalf of these 11 "transformers."

Today’s action by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control was taken in coordination with the Justice and State Departments. The list of businesses and individuals named by Treasury today as SDNTs is attached and available electronically from OFAC. It will be published in the Federal Register next week.

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