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U.S. NEWS Thursday 20 OcTOber 2022

The Treasury Building is viewed in Washington, May 4, 2021.
Associated Press
U.S. sanctions Mexicans

A doctor uses a hand-held Doppler probe on a pregnant woman to measure the heartbeat of the
fetus on Dec. 17, 2021, in Jackson, Miss. linked to powerful
Associated Press
COVID-19 linked to increase in U.S. Sinaloa drug cartel

pregnancy-related deaths By FATIMA HUSSEIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department on
By AMANDA SEITZ ernment Accountability Carolyn Yocom, a director Wednesday sanctioned a group of people and com-
Associated Press Office, which authored the at the Government Ac- panies connected to Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa drug
WASHINGTON (AP) — CO- report, analyzed pregnan- countability Office. cartel, including a sibling involved in the family-run Va-
VID-19 drove a dramatic cy-related deaths after “It’s really clear from the lenzuela drug trafficking organization.
increase in the number Congress mandated that data that the time in which The sanctions against Juan Francisco Valenzuela Valen-
of women who died from it review maternal health the delta variant spread zuela and his organization, sometimes called the Valen-
pregnancy or childbirth outcomes in the 2020 coro- seemed to correspond to a zuela DTO, freeze all their property and other interests in
complications in the U.S. navirus relief bill. huge increase in deaths,” the U.S. and bar Americans and American companies
last year, a crisis that has The maternal death rate in Yocom said. from doing business with them.
disproportionately claimed the U.S. is higher than many The maternal death rate is Valenzuela and his siblings Jorge Alberto Valenzuela
Black and Hispanic wom- other developed nations particularly stark for Black Valenzuela and Wuendi Yuridia Valenzuela Valenzuela
en as victims, accord- and had been on the rise women, who have long were arrested in 2020 and 2021 as their organization
ing to a report released in the years leading up to faced worse maternal out- was accused of importing and transporting multi-ton
Wednesday.. The report the pandemic, but CO- comes than their peers. quantities of illicit drugs, including methamphetamine,
lays out grim trends across VID-19 has only worsened Pregnancy-related deaths heroin and fentanyl, from Mexico to the United States.
the country for expectant conditions here for preg- for every 100,000 births “The Valenzuela drug trafficking organization fuels the
mothers and their newborn nant women. Women who climbed from 44 in 2019 to ongoing drug epidemic we face in the United States,
babies. contract the virus while 68.9 among Black women which has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands
It finds that pregnancy-re- pregnant face elevated last year. White women of Americans annually,” Treasury Under Secretary Brian
lated deaths have spiked health risks. Staffing short- had death rates of 26.1 last Nelson said. “Starving this network of resources will help
nearly 80% since 2018, with ages and COVID-19 restric- year, a jump from 17.9 in deprive the Sinaloa cartel of critical support it needs to
COVID-19 being a factor tions created more hurdles 2019. Death rates among traffic its dangerous illicit drugs.”
in a quarter of the 1,178 for expecting mothers to Hispanics had been on the Nearly 92,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses
deaths reported last year. get in-person health care; decline, but they swelled involving drugs, including illicit drugs and prescription
The percentage of preterm And pandemic stress has again during the pandem- opioids, in 2020, according to the National Institute on
and low birthweight ba- intensified depression, a ic from 12.6 per 100,000 in Drug Abuse.
bies also went up last year, common condition during 2019 to 27.5 last year. Treasury said it also sanctioned Valenzuela DTO mem-
after holding steady for pregnancy. Mental health Black and Hispanic people bers Hector Alfonso Araujo Peralta and Raul Rivas
years. And more pregnant issues likely contributed to have also died at higher Chaires and three Mexico-based transportation com-
or postpartum women are the increase in pregnancy- rates from COVID-19, in panies accused of completing transactions that con-
reporting symptoms of de- related deaths, Tabb Dina part because they have tributed to the international proliferation of illicit drugs.
pression. said. Many women who less access to medical In October 2021, federal drug trafficking indictments
“We were already in the experience depression and care and often work essen- were returned in California against Juan Francisco
middle of a crisis with anxiety during or after their tial jobs that exposed them Valenzuela Valenzuela, Peralta and Chaires. Valenzu-
maternal mortality in our pregnancy struggle to get to the virus. ela and his siblings were in custody and couldn’t be
country,” said Karen Tabb the care they need. Long before COVID-19 be- reached for comment. Peralta and Chaires are fugi-
Dina, a maternal health re- “Mental health is the great- gan spreading, the stage tives.
searcher at the University est complication in preg- was set for Black, low-in- The Sinaloa cartel’s notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Cha-
of Illinois at Urbana-Cham- nancy that we don’t un- come and rural women to po” Guzman was convicted in 2019 of running an indus-
paign. “This really shows derstand,” she said. receive subpar pregnancy trial-scale smuggling operation. At his trial, prosecutors
that COVID-19 has exac- The biggest spike in deaths care -- putting them at fur- said evidence gathered since the late 1980s showed
erbated that crisis to rates came during July through ther risk for their pregnan- he and his murderous cartel made billions of dollars by
that we, as a country, are December of last year, as cies to go wrong, accord- smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana
not able to handle.” the COVID-19 delta vari- ing to a separate GAO into the U.S.q
The nonpartisan U.S. Gov- ant infected millions, noted report.q