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Cambodian and U.S. authorities seized this week greater than a ton of precursor chemical substances and unlawful medication, together with roughly $7 million in cryptocurrency, in native operations related to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, an anti-drug official mentioned Friday.
Meas Vyrith, secretary-general of the Nationwide Authority for Combating Medication (NACD), mentioned Cambodia’s Anti-Drug Police, working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), raided 4 areas in Phnom Penh and different provinces over the previous 12 months in reference to the case.
The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh mentioned Thursday the joint operation, involving DEA places of work in Phnom Penh and New Jersey, uncovered a neighborhood community in Cambodia laundering cryptocurrency on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel. It mentioned the operation additionally led to the arrest of a number of international operatives and the seizure of drug laboratories and storage amenities.
The Sinaloa Cartel is certainly one of Mexico’s strongest drug trafficking organizations, lengthy recognized for smuggling cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine into the USA, in accordance with the DEA. As soon as led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, now serving a life sentence within the U.S., the cartel was designated a international terrorist group by Washington in February 2025 and has since expanded into world money-laundering operations, together with via cryptocurrency, officers say.
Vyrith mentioned the quantity of medication seized within the latest raid was better than what the U.S. Embassy had publicly introduced, however declined to offer a determine. He added that the alleged money-laundering community, which concerned hundreds of thousands of {dollars} price of cryptocurrency, was additionally linked to American suspects – a element not talked about within the embassy’s assertion.
“The producers are Mexican and Pakistani nationals linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, in addition to others who’re related to the case, which we’re nonetheless investigating,” he mentioned. “We discovered that the uncooked supplies used to provide the medication have been imported from the USA.”
The U.S. Embassy referred inquiries to the DEA, which didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“These high-level operations reveal how necessary worldwide collaboration is in breaking apart transnational felony networks and safeguarding residents of Cambodia and the USA,” the embassy mentioned in a put up on X.
Vyrith mentioned Cambodian authorities are dedicated to addressing the roots of the issue by persevering with to strengthen their technical experience and dealing with different related authorities. To date, authorities have arrested about 20 suspects linked to the Sinaloa Cartel community, he mentioned.
The case seems to echo earlier findings from the United Nations Workplace on Medication and Crime, which has reported that Chinese language and on-line rip-off syndicates in Cambodia and the broader area have expanded their crypto money-laundering methods by forging alliances with South American drug cartels.
