One of the first executive orders President Trump signed into law this term was the Executive Order 14157: Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. This executive order is aimed at ensuring Mexican cartels don’t have a presence in the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified six Mexico-based entities as FTOs/SDGTs, due to their role in a wide range of criminal activity, including illicit drug production and trafficking, and brutal tactics. These include the Sinaloa Cartel, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), Gulf Cartel, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and Carteles Unidos (an alliance of several criminal groups). Secretary Rubio also identified two transnational Latin American gangs: the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Tren de Aragua (TdA).
As Mexican cartels receive FTO designations and regulatory pressure to avert these risks intensifies, compliance teams need comprehensive screening capabilities beyond standard sanctions lists. These designations could mean that any payments made by a company to cartel-affiliated organizations or individuals, and any logistical assistance provided to them, could be construed as support of terrorist organizations.
Sayari’s Cartel Affiliates Module identifies hidden network connections to Mexican cartels and other OFAC sanctioned entities, helping organizations meet heightened due diligence requirements.
Identifying Hidden Cartel Risk with Sayari
Sayari’s Cartel Affiliates Module goes beyond regulatory lists and direct designations. It can help compliance teams stay ahead of emerging regulatory risks by identifying entities linked to Mexican cartels that may not yet appear on official sanctions lists but could face future enforcement action. By leveraging hard-to-access Mexican corporate registries from federal and state levels, Sayari’s data allows users to identify business associates, corporate officers, beneficial owners, family members of cartel leaders, and entities participating in financial and operational networks related to the six designated Mexican cartels and other OFAC sanctioned entities.
This data module uncovers disguised connections by automatically and continuously updating corporate registry information to track changes in names, addresses, and corporate statuses, which are key tactics used by cartel networks to obscure their connections. By leveraging verified corporate registry information with multiple data points for better detection — including addresses, identifiers, and dates of birth — the module also improves screening accuracy by reducing false negatives and strengthening the basis for compliance decisions.
How Sayari is different:
- First-to-market solution specifically focused on Mexican cartel affiliates, addressing an emerging compliance need ahead of other providers.
- Verifiable corporate registry data with time-stamped and accessible original records, providing stronger evidence for compliance decisions.
- Comprehensive coverage of over 5,000 entities, including approximately 1,000 seed entities (cartels and OFAC designations) and approximately 4,000 connected entities through corporate relationships.
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Sayari’s Cartel Affiliates data is available for every workflow. With Sayari Signal, users can integrate cartel risk data directly into existing screening systems. Users of Sayari Graph & Sayari Map can visually explore cartel connections and investigate identified networks within those platforms.
Schedule a personalized demo of Sayari’s Cartel Affiliates Module to uncover any hidden connections to new FTO designated organizations your business may have.
