Cambodia-US operation uncovers money laundering link to Sinaloa Cartel

[AP Photo]

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 last week.

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.

The U.S. Embassy had said in a statement posted Thursday on its Facebook page that collaborative efforts involving Drug Enforcement Administration offices in Phnom Penh and New Jersey “successfully uncovered a local network laundering cryptocurrency on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel.”

The Sinaloa Cartel has become a major producer of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the U.S. The group has obtained precursor chemicals, including from China, to produce fentanyl in Mexico and smuggle it into the U.S.

Cambodia serves largely as a transit area for drugs such as methamphetamine that originate in the Golden Triangle, the region where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet.

But in recent years, it has also been a stronghold for Chinese-led organized crime groups, best known for running scam centers that have bilked people around the world out of billions of dollars while employing many thousands of foreigners in slavelike conditions.

Over the past year, Cambodia has intensified a crackdown on such operations, shutting down scam centers and arresting several alleged kingpins, including some who had established legal financial institutions.

A report issued in July by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said several transnational organized crime groups from outside Southeast Asia are important criminal actors in the region, primarily involved in trafficking large quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine.

It said Latin American cartels’ engagement with Southeast Asia “appears to extend beyond drug and precursor chemical supply, and the region now functions as a supply, financial management, and logistics hub for multiple Latin American criminal organizations.”

In 2024, U.S. federal prosecutors said the Sinaloa Cartel worked with Chinese underground banking groups in the United States to launder more than $50 million from the sale of fentanyl, cocaine and other drugs. SOPHENG CHEANG, PHNOM PENH, MDT/AP