The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday said it sanctioned two Mexican businesses – an ice cream chain and a local pharmacy – for allegedly using proceeds of fentanyl trafficking to finance their operations tied to the Sinaloa cartel.

The move comes as rival cartel factions have been in a deadly conflict with each other and authorities following the surprise arrest on U.S. soil of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in late July, which is believed to have unleashed an internal power struggle within the group.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control — the U.S. agency that combats illicit funds and money laundering — said people previously cited for money laundering had set up a chain of ice cream and popsicle shops in the state of Sinaloa.

The Sinaloa cartel often uses their earnings from international drug trafficking to establish businesses, pouring cash into everything from fraudulent timeshare operations to restaurants to launder money.

OFAC said that another individual set up a pharmacy and convenience store using drug proceeds in the northern state of Sonora.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to using every tool at our disposal to combat the cartels that are poisoning our communities with fentanyl and other deadly drugs,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo in a statement.

The sanctions come days after the U.S. rejected accusations by Mexico’s President that the U.S. was partly responsible for a surge in cartel warfare that left dozens of people dead in Sinaloa.

The cartel is responsible for a significant portion of fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. They precursor chemicals from China and India to make the synthetic opioid and smuggle it into the United States, where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually.

Jesús Norberto Larrañaga Herrera, known as “El 30”, and Karla Gabriela Lizárraga Sánchez, established “Nieves y Paletas,” an ice cream chain with several storefront locations around the capital using drug proceeds, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

OFAC said a retail pharmacy and convenience store in Sonora were tied to drug trafficker José Arnoldo Morgan Huerta, nicknamed “Chachio.” His brother, Juan Carlos Morgan Huerta, known as “Cacayo,” is a Sinaloa cartel “plaza boss” and oversees drug trafficking in the border city of Nogales.

“Today’s action is part of a whole-of-government effort to counter the global threat posed by the trafficking of illicit drugs into the United States that is causing the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans annually, as well as countless more non-fatal overdoses,” the U.S. Treasury Department said in the statement.

Separately, the Treasury Department also announced Tuesday it was sanctioning five leaders of Colombia’s Clan del Golfo (CDG), a top drug trafficking network. 

The Gulf Clan “is one of the country’s largest drug trafficking organizations and a key contributor to human smuggling through the Darién Gap,” officials said in a statement.

In July, U.S. President Joe Biden announced a series of proposals aimed at curbing the ongoing drug epidemic. These include a push on Congress to pass legislation to establish a pill press and tableting machine registry and enhance penalties against convicted drug smugglers and traffickers of fentanyl.

Washington — The House is set to vote Wednesday on a stopgap measure to keep the government funded for three months, after Speaker Mike Johnson embraced a clean temporary funding measure that will need support from Democrats to pass. 

Last week, the House rejected Johnson’s initial funding plan, which would have kept the government funded for around six months and was paired with a noncitizen voting measure that Democrats viewed as a nonstarter. After the setback, which was driven in part by his own party, the speaker said he would opt to bring up a vote on a measure to extend funding through Dec. 20 without the voting proposal, rather than risk a government shutdown weeks ahead of Election Day. 

Then on Monday, Johnson was delivered another setback when the stopgap measure failed to secure enough support on the House Rules Committee, forcing House leadership to bring up the funding bill for a floor vote under suspension of the rules — a process that requires support from two-thirds of the chamber for passage.

Johnson said on Tuesday that he expects the continuing resolution to “pass by a wide margin,” while making clear that he thought “the best play under the circumstances was the CR with the SAVE Act,” referring to the voting measure.

“This was our opportunity to both vote to fund the government and ensure the security of the election, but we came a little short of the goal line,” Johnson said. “So we have to go with the last available play.”

The speaker called the legislation a “very narrow, bare bones” temporary measure. And while he noted that “we loathe [continuing resolutions] as much as anyone,” he said “it would be political malpractice to shut the government down.”

The government funding vote

The vote on the funding measure Wednesday could draw more support from Democrats than Republicans, given conservative opposition to the continuing resolution. The same dynamic has occurred in recent funding disputes, putting House Republican leadership in an uncomfortable position with their conference.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said on Tuesday that with Johnson’s move to proceed with the vote, the belief is “he has the Republicans to pass the bill,” adding that Democrats will “work in a bipartisan way to make sure that this gets done.”

The House is set to depart for a lengthy recess following the vote to keep the government funded, and won’t return until after the Nov. 5 election. And with the three-month funding measure, they’ll face a pre-holiday deadline to prevent a shutdown after their return. House Republicans have fretted about the outcome, which Congress frequently falls back upon. But Johnson said on Tuesday that House leadership opposes an omnibus funding package around the holidays.

“I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition,” Johnson said, suggesting that he would push to approve the 12 full-year spending bills after the election. 

The Senate will also need to act to prevent a shutdown ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline, assuming the House bill passes. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer encouraged the House to approve the continuing resolution “quickly,” saying on Tuesday afternoon that “time is of the essence.” He outlined that the Senate will move swiftly on the stopgap measure once it passes the lower chamber to avert the shutdown threat. 

“If we work together, stay away from poison pills and partisanship, we can avoid a government shutdown,” Schumer said.