The DEA said it had designated Panama-based Mr Waked as a drug lord, describing him as “one of the world’s most significant drug money launderers and criminal facilitators”.
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The Treasury Department said the assets of 68 companies linked to the family have been frozen and stopped from doing business with US -based companies.
Commenting on this action, John E. Smith, Acting OFAC Director said: “This action exposes the Waked Money Laundering Organization and disrupts its ability to launder drug trafficking proceeds using trade-based methods, duty free retail, real estate development, and financial services throughout the region”.
Only minutes after Nidal Waked, an affluent Colombian businessman with a complex network of banking, real estate and retail companies, walked through customs at a Bogota airport, anti-narcotics officers swooped in.
“Our banking and stock regulators have taken immediate measures to protect the integrity of our stock market and of account holders”, Varela said in a statement Friday.
Abdul Waked, who was born in Lebanon and immigrated to Colombia’s Caribbean coast, is behind some of Panama’s highest-profile investments including a luxury mall, a bank and the country’s oldest newspaper, La Estrella de Panama.
It futher alleges that this organisation uses trade-based money laundering schemes, such as false commercial invoicing, bulk cash smuggling, and other money laundering methods to launder drug proceeds on behalf of multiple worldwide drug traffickers and their organizations.
It said Waked Hatum, who is a national of Spain, Colombia and Panama, is wanted by a court in Florida for alleged fraud and money-laundering.
A leaked 2009 US diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks described the airport as “tainted by a seamy underside of alien smuggling, money launder, narcotics trafficking and corruption”.
Grupo Wisa issued a terse statement saying the accusations “are false and unfounded”.
Grupo Wisa said it had told its lawyers to co-operate fully with the investigation.
In addition, the very detailed action also targets “principal Panama-based companies” who are said to be used to laundering drug and other illicit proceeds.
A law enforcement official, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly, said the family worked with a wide range of drug cartels from Colombia and Mexico as well as independent drug-trafficking organizations.
Today (5 May US time), the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced extensive sanctions again the Waked organisation, which controls Grupo Wisa (and its La Riviera brand).
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Associated Press writer Juan Zamorano contributed to this story from Panama City.
