WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department said yesterday that it was designating a former Colombian official as a specially designated narcotics trafficker and forbidding U.S. citizens from any contact with him.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control cited Guillermo Leon Valencia Cossio, former regional director for the Colombia prosecutor’s office in Medellin, for his ties to the organization of narcotics trafficker Daniel Rendon Herrera.
Valencia Cossio was arrested in August 2008 by Colombian authorities and is on trial on charges of corruption and conspiracy for assisting drug trafficking by paramilitary groups.
Separately, OFAC identified two U.S.-based companies, Running Brook LLC and La Hacienda that it said were owned or controlled by a Peruvian named Fernando Melciades Zevallos Gonzales, a narcotics trafficker.