In a sweeping move to choke off cartel finances and curb the fentanyl crisis, the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday announced new sanctions targeting the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa cartel, along with leaders and 15 businesses accused of laundering millions of dollars through bars, restaurants, and resorts just miles south of the U.S. border.

Reporting from the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego, Newsmax correspondent Heather Myers joined John K. Hurley, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, and U.S. Border Patrol agents for an exclusive tour of smuggling corridors.

Myers had an up-close look at where the drug trade begins.

"I am just a few feet from the U.S.-Mexico border," Myers said during her report. "On the other side of this fence is where the Sinaloa drug cartel controls territory."

Hurley pointed across the fence to the very routes where, he said, millions of dollars' worth of fentanyl are funneled into the United States. That money flows directly back to cartel factions like Los Mayos, fueling the drug trade and deadly overdoses in American communities.

The Treasury Department's action freezes U.S. assets of all sanctioned individuals and companies, bars Americans from doing business with them, and warns foreign banks that they too could face penalties if they facilitate transactions.

High on the list is Juan José Ponce Félix, known as El Ruso, the armed-wing leader of Los Mayos in Baja, California. In coordination with the State Department, a $5 million reward is now being offered for information leading to his arrest.

Also named are 15 Mexico-based businesses — including popular bars and resorts in Tijuana and Rosarito, a tourist beach town just south of San Diego — that officials say serve as fronts to launder cartel profits while strengthening the group's influence over local government.

The goal is to cut off the cartel's money and weaken its grip on both drug trafficking and corruption along the border, Myers reported.

Hurley echoed that mission, telling Newsmax, "Let's make it much less profitable to be in this business and see if we can put them out of business entirely and protect our communities and communities around the world."

He highlighted the stakes: "Fentanyl has been taking, some years, 100,000 lives in the United States. Other countries are now just starting to understand that it's affecting them as well. Hopefully, we can engage them in the effort with us."

The Sinaloa cartel, long a dominant force in the international drug trade, has been formally designated a foreign terrorist organization. Thursday's action fits into the Trump administration's broader effort to attack cartel finances, having already sanctioned banks, suspected money-laundering enterprises, and other cartel factions.

Officials stress that targeting money is just as critical as stopping the drugs themselves. "It's hitting them where it hurts the most," Myers said, summarizing the Treasury's view.

Newsmax wires contributed to this report.

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