US Treasury Sanctions a Nuevo Laredo Racetrack It Says the Cartel del Noreste Controls

The Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated Club La Molienda, a horse racetrack on the edge of Nuevo Laredo that Treasury says shared a betting arrangement with Casino Centenario, the casino it accused in April of serving as a drug stash house and a place where the cartel tortured its enemies. It is the second US action in six months to put a Mexican gambling venue on the sanctions list.

• The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on 13 October sanctioned four individuals and 11 entities it links to the Cartel del Noreste (CDN), including Club La Molienda, which it describes as the most prominent racetrack in Nuevo Laredo
• Treasury says La Molienda and Casino Centenario ran a partnership that let customers bet on its races from the casino, until a joint US and Mexican action suspended the casino in April
• OFAC designated Casino Centenario on 14 April, saying the cartel used it to store fentanyl and cocaine, launder proceeds through its gaming operations and torture alleged enemies in its backrooms
• The designations rest on Executive Order 14059 on illicit drugs and Executive Order 13224 on terrorism, and block any property in the US or held by US persons
• It follows the November 2025 action in which OFAC sanctioned 27 targets and FinCEN moved against 10 Mexican gambling establishments, as Mexico shut 13 casinos in a parallel laundering probe

Treasury Says the Cartel Runs the Track and Took Bets Through the Casino

OFAC sanctioned four individuals and 11 entities connected to the CDN on 13 October, in what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the department's "most significant effort to date" against the cartel's finances. It is OFAC's fourth and largest action against CDN networks since May 2025, according to the press release. The CDN, formerly Los Zetas, has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department since 20 February 2025.

Club La Molienda, also listed as La Molienda Race Track and Restaurant Bar La Molienda, is a racetrack, restaurant and bar on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas. Treasury alleges it is controlled by Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, known as "Z-40", a cartel founder now held in the United States, and overseen by other CDN leaders in his absence. The track raises money for the cartel through entrance fees from those racing horses and from spectators, Treasury says, and cartel members buy horses, many from the United States, to race there.

The gambling link runs through Casino Centenario. Before the casino was suspended in April, Treasury says, it and La Molienda entered a "strategic gambling partnership" that let people bet on races at the track from the casino's premises. OFAC designated the casino on 14 April, alleging that the CDN used it as a stash house for fentanyl pills and cocaine, to launder proceeds through its gaming operations, and used its backrooms "to torture and intimidate alleged enemies of the cartel". Those are Treasury's allegations; no court has tested them. The April action also designated the operator, Comercializadora y Arrendadora de Mexico (CAMSA), and its Diamante Casino in Tampico.

On the same day in April, Mexico's Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) acted and the Interior Ministry, Segob, suspended the casinos' activities, according to Treasury; Excélsior reported that the UIF filed criminal complaints for laundering and tax offences. Treasury says this week's action was also coordinated with the UIF. We found no Mexican government statement on La Molienda.

Horse Owners, Builders and a Trucking Yard

Treasury alleges that Gamaliel Garza García, a businessman whose horses race in California and New Mexico and frequently at La Molienda, owns a construction company, CEGESA, that the cartel used to funnel money to its preferred election candidates and that corruptly won public contracts in Nuevo Laredo and Tamaulipas. CEGESA, his racing barn Cuadra San Dibanh and seven other construction and fuel companies were designated as his; his son, Gamaliel Garza Elías, was designated for his role at CEGESA and for allegedly delivering campaign cash.

OFAC also named Pablo César Guajardo Álvarez, known as "Takia", whom it calls the CDN's plaza boss in Nuevo Laredo, and the trucking company Tamex and its dispatcher Francisco Javier Inzunza Partida, over two cocaine shipments totalling 52 kilograms hidden in trailer brake drums. Treasury recalls that between 2008 and 2012 Los Zetas laundered upwards of $22 million through American quarter horse racing, before the US seized 455 horses in June 2012.

Designation blocks all property of the targets in the United States or held by US persons, extends to entities 50% or more owned by them, and generally bars US persons from dealing with them. The entries carry secondary sanctions risk under Executive Order 13224, so foreign banks that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for them risk restrictions on their US correspondent accounts.

The Race-Betting Link Is the Detail Gambling Compliance Teams Should Note

The April action treated Casino Centenario as a building used for storage, cash and violence. This one describes a commercial product, cross-venue race betting, joining a sanctioned casino to a track Treasury says the cartel controls. Mexico's 1947 Federal Gaming and Raffles Law places every game involving bets, horse races included, under Segob authorisation, and Treasury does not say whether La Molienda or the arrangement held one. Either answer is uncomfortable: a permitted product run through a cartel venue, or an unpermitted one run openly from a border casino.

The US Racing Industry Now Has Names to Screen

The sharper exposure may be north of the border. Garza García races in California and New Mexico, and Treasury says CDN members buy many of their horses in the United States. US-based sales companies, trainers, tracks and bloodstock agents are US persons, and dealing with a designated individual or his barn is now generally prohibited. The 2012 seizure showed how quarter horse racing could absorb cartel money; these designations give racing compliance teams names to screen against.

Washington Is Setting the Pace on Mexican Casino Enforcement

Since November 2025 Treasury has sanctioned the Hysa group, which it says operated with the Sinaloa Cartel's consent, proposed through FinCEN to cut 10 Mexican gambling establishments off from US correspondent banking, and now designated two casinos and a racetrack in Tamaulipas. We found no final FinCEN rule in the Federal Register. Mexico's own instrument, Segob's rewrite of the 1947 gaming law, was still awaiting the security cabinet in September. The November and April actions were each paired with Mexican measures, which shows the two governments coordinating, but the US designations are leading.

Treasury has moved from the casino floor to a racetrack it says the cartel controls. Until Mexico's reform passes, the clearest map of where cartel money meets Mexican gambling is the list OFAC keeps.