Treasury designates two as drug kingpins

WASHINGTON, June 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated two Afghan drug traffickers under the Kingpin Act Wednesday, making financial dealings with them a crime.

In a press statement, the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced its actions against Shah Mohammad Barakzai and Haji Baz Mohammad targets their financial activities, freezing any of their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting U.S. citizens from conducting commercial transactions with them.

Barakzai was arrested and sentenced by a court in Afghanistan in 2011 for operating as a narcotics trafficker, the statement said, adding it had also designated two other associates and two businesses of his in Afghanistan.