Mexican authorities have suspended operations at 13 casinos following a months-long investigation into a sophisticated money laundering ring. Officials allege
Mexican authorities have suspended operations at 13 casinos following a months-long investigation into a sophisticated money laundering ring. Officials allege these establishments were used to channel large sums of illicit funds overseas, a process that was uncovered through close collaboration with international partners, including US agencies.
Mexico’s Security Secretary, Omar García Harfuch, stated that the investigation traced how funds were moved through casino transactions before being sent abroad. While Harfuch noted that three of the companies involved had ties to organised crime, he clarified that this did not necessarily indicate direct involvement by drug cartels.
The core of the alleged scheme relied on identity theft and the manipulation of casino payout systems. According to Mexico’s top tax prosecutor, Grisel Galeano, the process often began with the stolen identities of individuals with limited financial resources, such as students, homemakers, and retirees.
These individuals would unknowingly receive prepaid cards or electronic codes from unknown sources, which were then used to place small wagers inside the casinos. Once the bet was registered, the casino allegedly recorded a fabricated “windfall” worth millions of dollars under the person’s name.
“The money was then transferred to accounts of front businesses abroad, moved through tax havens and ultimately returned to Mexico via the same companies or through other corporate channels,” Galeano explained. This method allowed operators to disguise unlawful payments as legitimate casino winnings, bypassing standard financial checks.
Grupo Salinas, the conglomerate owned by billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, confirmed that two of its casinos were among those ordered to suspend activities. In a statement, the company denied any wrongdoing and characterised the government’s actions as harassment.
This development comes amidst a broader conflict between Salinas and the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum. Salinas has frequently criticised the government’s regulatory and tax policies. Coinciding with the casino suspensions, Mexico’s Supreme Court recently rejected seven of nine legal appeals filed by Salinas-linked companies regarding tax debts exceeding $2.6 billion. Grupo Salinas has argued these charges constitute double taxation and indicated it may pursue international legal remedies.
Just one day after Mexico’s announcement, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on members of the Hysa family and several associated businesses across Mexico, Canada, and Poland.
The Treasury alleges the Hysa group used a network of casinos and restaurants as fronts to launder funds for the Sinaloa Cartel. Those sanctioned include Luftar Hysa and several relatives, whom US authorities accuse of working with a US based individual to transport bulk cash from Mexico.
The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) also issued a notice of intent to designate transactions at 10 Mexican casinos as “of primary money laundering concern.” Five of these establishments are located in key border cities, including Rosarito, Nogales, and Ensenada. US Treasury Under Secretary John K. Hurley emphasised that these actions were coordinated with the Mexican government, reinforcing a shared commitment to countering financial crime in the gambling sector.
This case exposes a critical, often overlooked vulnerability in land-based gambling compliance: the “human mule.” While digital KYC (Know Your Customer) checks are becoming increasingly sophisticated with biometric liveness detection, physical venues in many jurisdictions still rely on manual ID checks that are easily exploited.
The scheme described by Grisel Galeano-where “homemakers and students” are used as proxies for million-dollar wins-points to a massive failure in Source of Wealth (SoW) verification. In a tightly regulated market, a student walking in with a prepaid card and walking out with a “million-dollar windfall” would trigger an immediate freeze and an Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) investigation. The fact that these transactions were allegedly processed and the funds wired abroad suggests either gross negligence or, more likely, active complicity by the casino staff and management.
The coordination between Mexico’s tax authority and the US Treasury is significant. It signals a shift from treating these issues as local regulatory breaches to treating them as national security threats involving transnational organised crime. For operators in Mexico, this is a clear warning: the era of using “payouts” to wash cash is ending, and the US is willing to use extraterritorial sanctions to enforce that reality.
