Justice Department steps up pressure on cartels' financial networks as
launderers turn to crypto
[February 06, 2026]
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is taking direct aim at the
financial lifelines of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels, targeting
money brokers who prosecutors say have adapted to intensified
enforcement by increasingly routing drug profits through cryptocurrency
from American cities to cartel leaders in Mexico.
The cases of four defendants recently sent from Mexico to the U.S. for
prosecution provide a glimpse into shadowy money laundering networks
that allow the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and other violent groups to
continue pumping dangerous drugs into American communities. The
prosecutions underscore the Justice Department's efforts to turn up the
pressure on cartels and stay ahead of their sophisticated and
ever-evolving tactics to launder money across the border without
detection.
By targeting alleged money brokers — rather than street-level
traffickers — prosecutors say they are aiming at a choke point they
believe is essential to the cartels sustaining their operations as law
enforcement pressure mounts on more visible drug routes.
“If you cut off the money, you hurt the cartels, and that’s what we’re
trying to do,” A. Tysen Duva, the assistant attorney general in charge
of the Justice Department's criminal division, said in an interview with
The Associated Press.
Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's second administration,
the Mexican government has turned over more than 90 high-level
defendants with ties to cartels in three transfers now at the center of
a legal debate in Mexico. The defendants were wanted by U.S. prosecutors
for crimes including drug trafficking, human smuggling and money
laundering.
Senior Justice Department officials say bringing cartel figures to the
United States is designed to do more than be a deterrent message. It
could also lead to indictments against other high-level leaders if
defendants cooperate, allowing prosecutors to reach higher into cartel
leadership. Under Trump's Republican administration, the Justice
Department has restructured the Criminal Division to integrate narcotics
prosecutors with anti-money laundering experts to better target cartels
and to reflect a broader shift toward targeting the financial systems
that sustain their operations.
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The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a
press conference, May 6, 2025, at the Justice Department in
Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
The latest transfers to the U.S. include alleged Mexico-based money
brokers, who authorities say oversee the movement of drug proceeds
and pocket a percentage of the money that returns to the cartels as
a commission, according to court papers. The brokers arrange for
cash to be picked up in cities across the U.S. and conceal the money
to get it across the border, often through digital assets as law
enforcement has cut off other methods.
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 said.
“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.”
Eduardo Rigoberto Velasco Calderon, Eliomar Segura Torres, Manuel
Ignacio Correa and Cesar Linares-Orozco face money laundering
conspiracy charges in indictments filed in Kentucky’s federal court.
An attorney for Linares-Orozco declined to comment in an email to
the AP, and no attorneys were listed in court papers for the other
defendants.
The January transfer of 37 defendants from Mexico to the U.S. marked
the third of its kind under Trump's second term. Observers have
described the transfers as an offering by Mexican authorities to
offset mounting threats by Trump to take military action against
cartels.
A group of lawyers and family members of cartel figures have accused
Mexico of breaking the law by sending them without an extradition
order. Mexico’s government has maintained the transfers were legal,
carried out in the name of national security.
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