U.S. Treasury Targets Cartel Jalisco-Connected Timeshares, Resorts in Mexico

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announced a series of sanctions against a resort in Mexico tied to timeshare scams run by the terrorist organization Cartel Jalisco New Generation. In response to the move by U.S. financial authorities, Mexico’s government has also frozen assets and imposed sanctions on the same resort and its operators.

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had imposed sanctions against the resort Kovay Gardens, its owners, and various members of a financial scam operation run by Cartel Jalisco New Generation. The sanctions prevent any U.S. citizen or business from doing business with them and also freeze any assets they may have in the United States.

Kovay Gardens is described as an upscale resort that lent itself to work time share scams targeting primarily elderly U.S. tourists. The move worked by having the resort provide information about tourists to cartel call centers, which used various schemes to entice tourists to purchase timeshares, rent or lease them, or try to get them out of them. However, the cartel callers would simply demand fees upfront and find ways to re-victimize the tourists through various scams, garnering large profits for CJNG. At the start of the Trump administration, government officials labeled CJNG and other similar cartels as foreign terrorist groups.

According to Treasury officials, drug cartels, particularly CJNG, have been running similar timeshare scams for decades, with CJNG focusing on the activities in the popular beach destination of Puerto Vallarta and surrounding areas.

As part of the sanctions and asset freezes, Treasury officials identified several individuals, including Kovay Gardens founder Carlos Humberto Rivera Miramontes. Also named in the actions are CJNG businessman Carlos Ibarra Diaz Jr. and close to a dozen companies in Mexico, all linked to CJNG. Authorities also identified four key CJNG timeshare scammers: Oscar Enrique “Tagayas” Jimenez Tapia, Jose Luis “Tolin” Gutierrez Ochoa, Jonathan Faustino “Johnny Hood” Rios Gonzalez, and Jose Eduardo Palacios Rodriguez.

Soon after the U.S. Treasury announced its sanctions, Mexico’s tax office took similar action and identified additional CJNG operators linked to the timeshare scam. Just days after announcing the sanctions against CJNG’s financial arm, Mexican military forces killed the cartel’s leader, Ruben Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, Breitbart Texas reported.