By KRWG News
Mexico City – President Barack Obama's administration named 54 alleged Mexican drug cartel lieutenants and enforcers as drug kingpins.
The announcement today comes under a law that allows the U.S. government to freeze the alleged kingpins' bank accounts and penalize their business associates.
The action carried out as part of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act involves members of the Gulf Cartel and a gang of former Gulf cartel hit men known as the Zetas.
Dozens of cartel-related businesses and individuals have already been named, allowing authorities over the past decade to seize $13 million and freeze $3 million in drug-related assets.
And it coincided with continued episodes of violence. In Ciudad Juarez, for instance, police are investigating the murders of four people at a funeral parlor late yesterday. Juarez is just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.