WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- A lieutenant in the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel is targeted for sanctions for his role in drug-trafficking activities, the U.S. State Department said Thursday.
Jose Guadalupe Tapia Quintero was placed under sanctions for overseeing the transportation of cocaine and marijuana for the drug organization run by Ismael "Mayo" Zambada Garcia, a Sinaloa leader, the Treasury Department said in a release.
Tapia also is responsible for coordinating the purchase and transportation of narcotics from Sinaloa state into the United States on a monthly basis, Treasury officials said.
Tapia's designation, allowed through the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, generally prohibits U.S. persons from conducting financial or commercial transactions with him and freezes any assets he may have under U.S. jurisdiction.
"We will continue to target all aspects of the Sinaloa cartel," said Adam J. Szubin, the department's director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. "Our actions will focus on the financial nerve points as well as the underlying logistics that are essential to the cartel's day-to-day operations, such as the transportation network that we are taking action against today."
