Ex-DEA Financial Chief Accused of Laundering Millions for Terror-Listed Mexican Cartel

NEW YORK — A former senior Drug Enforcement Administration official has been accused of conspiring to help one of Mexico’s most violent cartels move drug money, procure weapons and even facilitate a multi-million-dollar cocaine shipment — an alleged turn from high-level U.S. narcotics enforcer to would-be money man for a group now designated as a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors say in an indictment unsealed Friday in federal court in Manhattan that Paul Campo, 61, a onetime deputy chief of the DEA’s Office of Financial Operations, and his longtime associate, 75-year-old businessman Robert Sensi, allegedly conspired to launder up to US$12 million, turn cash into cryptocurrency and help Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel acquire drones, rifles and explosives.

The pair allegedly also offered advice on fentanyl production, feeding directly into the cartel’s core business model exporting synthetic opioids to North American markets.

In recent years, the Jalisco cartel has emerged as one of Mexico’s most powerful mafias, thriving on corruption of high officials while smuggling cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the United States, and using extreme violence to secure its routes. Earlier this year, the U.S. government formally labelled it a foreign terrorist organization, opening the door to more aggressive charges — including “narcoterrorism” counts and material-support statutes typically used in jihadist prosecutions.