US Treasury Department Sanctions Ethereum Wallet Linked to Sinaloa Drug Cartel

Posted: September 27, 2023

• Sinaloa, one of the largest drug cartels in the world, is a major supplier of fentanyl in the US
• The sanctioned wallet has enabled transactions worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). added Ten people linked to the illegal narcotics trade were placed on the sanctions list on September 26. One of these people owned an Ethereum [ETH] wallet.

The Ethereum wallet with the address “0x9c2‘is from a man associated with the Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa. The Mexican gang is considered one of the largest drug cartels in the world and is a major supplier of fentanyl in the US.

The wallet currently contains only 0.017 ETH ($27). However, it has enabled transactions worth tens of thousands of dollars in stablecoins like Tether [USDT] and USD coin [USDC].

The person who owns the Ethereum wallet is a money launderer. According to authorities, the person has…

Reporting directly to a Chapitos deputy, he heads a money laundering organization that uses, among other things, virtual currency and wire transfers to transfer proceeds from the illegal sale of fentanyl in the United States to the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.

Most of the transactions recorded in the wallet were incoming transfers from Coinbase [COIN] and outbound transfers to Binance [BNB].

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is already monitoring Coinbase and Binance for allegedly offering unregistered crypto securities to customers.

No interaction with sanctioned addresses is allowed

The sanction freezes all assets held in the US in the said Ethereum wallet. It also prohibits Americans from transacting with this wallet.

Technically, the sanctioned address can still be used, but it is illegal to transact with it. This means that cryptocurrency exchanges that connect to the wallet address may face legal consequences.

Last year, OFAC also sanctioned crypto addresses linked to the North Korea-backed country Lazarus group and crypto tumbler Tornado Cash for crypto hacks and money laundering.