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Wednesday, October 14, 2026

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Treasury · Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Treasury sanctions a cartel’s horse track and businesses

The File desk · Oct 14, 2026, 10:56 AM UTC

Status

Confirmed as a Treasury sanctions announcement dated Oct. 13, 2026. A designation blocks property. It is not a criminal conviction of the people named.

  • Confirmed

    The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned four people and 11 businesses tied to Cartel del Noreste, including a horse track in Nuevo Laredo and a racing barn.

  • Confirmed

    The release says the action uses

    and , as amended. Property of the designated people and businesses in the United States, or held by U.S. persons, is blocked.

The Treasury Department on Tuesday froze property tied to Cartel del Noreste’s horse racing and other businesses. The sanctions office named four people and 11 companies. They include Club La Molienda, a horse track, restaurant, and bar on the edge of Nuevo Laredo, and a racing barn called Cuadra San Dibanh. Treasury says the cartel uses the track to make money and that leaders buy horses, including horses from the United States, to race there. Anyone in the United States who holds property of the named people or businesses must block it and report it. This is a sanctions designation, not a criminal verdict.

The release is dated Oct. 13, 2026, from the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Secretary Scott Bessent said the action exposes the cartel’s use of horse racing to launder money and finance operations. That is his sentence. Launder means moving the proceeds of a crime so they look clean.

The action uses

, which targets international drug trafficking and the means of producing those drugs, and , as amended, which targets terrorists and people who support them. Treasury says this is its fourth and largest action against this cartel’s networks in the current administration.

Club La Molienda is designated because Treasury says the cartel owns, controls, or directs it. The track charges entrance fees for racers and for spectators. Treasury says it is controlled by Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, known as Z-40, and overseen by other leaders while he is jailed in the United States.

Gamaliel Garza Garcia, a businessman Treasury calls an associate of the cartel, races horses in Mexico and in the United States, including at La Molienda. He controls Cuadra San Dibanh, a quarter-horse barn in Anáhuac, Nuevo León. Treasury also designated companies it says he controls in construction and fuel around Nuevo Laredo, and designated his son, Gamaliel Garza Elias, for his role at one of those construction companies. The release says that company has been used to move money to political campaigns the cartel prefers and to obtain government contracts.

Other names include Pablo Cesar Guajardo Alvarez, described as the cartel’s current plaza boss in Nuevo Laredo, and a trucking company, Tamex, which Treasury says has been the origin of cocaine shipments hidden in trailer brake drums. Two seized shipments totaled 52 kilograms.

The practical effect, as the release states it: all property of the designated people and businesses that is in the United States, or in the possession of U.S. persons, is blocked and must be reported. Companies owned 50 percent or more by blocked persons are blocked too. U.S. persons generally may not deal in that property unless a license allows it. Foreign banks that knowingly handle a significant transaction for someone designated under the relevant authority can lose their access to U.S. dollar accounts.

The older horse case is in the same release as background. Between 2008 and 2012, Treasury says, Zetas-linked fronts spent $16 million on racehorses in New Mexico, Oklahoma, California, and Texas and laundered upwards of $22 million. In June 2012 the government seized 455 horses. That history is the department’s account of the predecessor group.

What is still unknown or disputed

Primary sources

Every claim in this story is drawn from the documents below. If a fetch failed, that is recorded on the card.

  1. Source 1

    Treasury Targets Cartel del Noreste’s Horse Racing Enterprise and Expansive Criminal Network

    U.S. Department of the Treasury · October 13, 2026

    OFAC sanctioned four individuals and 11 entities connected to Cartel del Noreste, including quarter-horse racing, construction, trucking, and oil and gas. The action was taken pursuant to and , as amended.

    https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0656