President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday that there was “simply no proof” of U.S. accusations that three Mexican financial firms had laundered millions of dollars in connection with fentanyl trafficking, pushing back against the Trump administration’s latest move in its crackdown on the drug trade.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday accused the three Mexican firms of laundering money in connection with fentanyl trafficking by drug cartels, part of a campaign to curb the flow of opioids into the United States. The announcement was received with skepticism by Mexican officials, including Ms. Sheinbaum, who said her country had received no solid evidence of any wrongdoing.
“We neither deny nor accept this,” Ms. Sheinbaum told reporters during her daily news conference. “We are not going to cover for anyone, there is no impunity. But it must be demonstrated that there was indeed money laundering — not with words, but with convincing evidence.”
The move, which prohibits some transfers of funds to the companies — Vector Casa de Bolsa, Intercam Banco and CIBanco — could raise tensions between the United States and Mexico. The Trump administration has already designated several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Ms. Sheinbaum has also sought to appease President Trump by ramping up seizures of fentanyl in parts of Mexico and transferring dozens of cartel operatives to U.S. custody.
The accusations quickly raised eyebrows across Mexico since Vector is a large brokerage firm controlled by Alfonso Romo, a businessman who was chief of staff for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former Mexican president and founder of the country’s leftist governing party.
Vector rejected the accusations. “Our brokerage firm has operated under the highest standards of regulatory compliance, internal auditing and supervision,” the firm said in a statement. It added that the operations singled out by the Treasury “correspond to ordinary transactions with legally established companies.”
Mexico’s Finance Ministry said in a statement that it had requested proof linking the financial firms with any illegal activities, but that “no evidence was received.”
The wire transfers mentioned by the U.S. Treasury, the ministry added, had been made to legal companies in China — transactions that it said “are carried out by the thousands” between Mexican and Chinese companies.
“We want to be clear,” the ministry’s statement said. “If we have conclusive information that demonstrates the illicit activities of these three financial institutions, we will act with the full force of the law.”
It added that the Mexican authorities had detected some “administrative issues” that had resulted in sanctions, including fines, but that they did not constitute money laundering.
Treasury officials said that a Sinaloa cartel “mule” had laundered $2 million from the United States to Mexico through Vector from 2013 to 2021. The Treasury also found that from 2018 to 2024 Vector had facilitated the purchase of precursor chemicals — which are used to make fentanyl — from China.
Those years overlapped with the period in which Mr. Romo was Mr. López Obrador’s chief of staff, from 2018 to 2020. The former president was not implicated in any way in connection with the Treasury’s accusations against Vector or the other firms.
Reports of any ties between public officials and drug cartels, however direct or indirect they may be, are a highly sensitive issue in Mexico.
Mr. López Obrador lashed out last year over news reports describing how U.S. law enforcement officials had looked into claims that allies of his had taken millions of dollars from drug cartels for his unsuccessful 2006 campaign and during his six-year term. The United States never opened a formal investigation into the former president.
On Thursday, Ms. Sheinbaum said that Mexico’s financial system has numerous measures to combat money laundering. She also said Mexico would collaborate with U.S. authorities — so long as there was credible proof of the accusations.
“Mexico is a great country and the relationship with the United States is one of equals,” she said. “We are no one’s piñata.”
The other firms targeted by the Treasury are commercial banks. Executives at Intercam are accused of meeting with suspected members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in 2022. In addition, a China-based supplier of precursor chemicals received more than $1.5 million through Intercam, the Treasury said in a statement.
Similarly, CIBanco is accused of processing more than $2.1 million in payments on behalf of Mexico-based companies to China-based companies for the purchase of precursor chemicals. And a CIBanco employee helped open an account to launder $10 million on behalf of a Gulf cartel member, the Treasury found.
In a statement, Intercam said, “We categorically deny any association between this institution and any illicit activity — particularly money laundering.”
Officials at CIBanco could not immediately be reached for comment.
“This is not a symbolic gesture,” Simón Levy, a former official of the López Obrador administration who has since become a critic, said on social media.
“The message is blunt: Banks are no longer passive intermediaries,” Mr. Levy added. “They are part of the equation. And whoever allows, facilitates or simply ignores operations with resources of illicit origin will be sanctioned, excluded and exposed.”
Miriam Castillo contributed reporting.
Simon Romero is a Times correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He is based in Mexico City.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
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