“They do not designate Mexico, but everything that has to do with cartels, wherever they operate, for example, it can be against X Cartel and this opera in Guatemala, El Salvador, is not a qualification to Mexico, but to organizations Criminals, ”said Sandro García-Rojas Castillo, founding partner of Lex Quo Group and International Consultant.
Given the designation, Mexico has to be attentive to the regulatory framework that regulates terrorist organizations in the US, because this would be the one to adopt in its financial system, which would imply some type of reform, adaptation through agreements and decrees, decrees, In equal the Federal Law for the Prevention and Identification of Operations with Resources of Illicit Origin would have to be deepened, in addition to hardening the sanctions in the Criminal Code that are for the financing of terrorism, explained Gloria Rocío Estrada Antón, president of the Technical Commission of foreign trade of the College of Public Accountants of Mexico (CCPM).
Where are we?
For example, in the US, any financial institution linked to that country that knows how Acronym in English) of the US Department of Treasury, the institution analogous to the SHCP in Mexico.
In Mexico, financial institutions can freez 115 of the Law of Credit Institutions.
“I think it is worth having an open interlocution with the US authorities to make them see the implications that this has for both economies. The legal framework must be reviewed to see if it is enough to be able to meet this designation, somehow a security scenario in the country is being reconfigured. Of course I think that We will have reforms in the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing In the regulation to the financial system, adapt that legal framework, among many other things, ”considered the founding partner of Lex Quo Group.
OFAC LISTAS
The challenge of these works is not less for Mexico, since it has the experience and robust regulatory framework to act against money laundering, focused on the destination of capital, but not on the fight against financing to terrorism, which is focused on the Origin of money, “control measures are needed in very different financial institutions to identify each other,” said Manuel Herrera, president of Economic Studies of the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives (IMEF).
While the designation is due to a security issue, it would cause everything that has to do with the cartels is seen by the OFAC, the authority responsible for regulating these issues, and that publishes the list of specially designated nationals and blocked people, the which contains the name of companies and people whose assets must be blocked or frozen.
