Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent Clau­dia Shein­baum re­spond­ed sharply Thurs­day to U.S. gov­ern­ment sanc­tions block­ing trans­fers from three Mex­i­can fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, say­ing Wash­ing­ton hasn’t shown ev­i­dence of its al­le­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing.

The U.S. Trea­sury De­part­ment an­nounced the sanc­tions Wednes­day on the banks CIBan­co and In­ter­cam Ban­co and the bro­ker­age Vec­tor Casa de Bol­sa, al­leg­ing that they had fa­cil­i­tat­ed mil­lions of dol­lars in mon­ey trans­fers for Mex­i­can drug car­tels.

Shein­baum said dur­ing her morn­ing news brief­ing Thurs­day that the ad­min­is­tra­tion of U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump had showed no ev­i­dence prov­ing that the in­sti­tu­tions car­ried out any mon­ey laun­der­ing, de­spite re­peat­ed re­quests for such ev­i­dence.

“The Trea­sury De­part­ment hasn’t pro­vid­ed a sin­gle piece of ev­i­dence to show that any mon­ey laun­der­ing was tak­ing place,” she said. “We aren’t go­ing to cov­er for any­one, there isn’t im­puni­ty here. They have to be able to demon­strate that there was ac­tu­al­ly mon­ey laun­der­ing, not with words, but with strong ev­i­dence.”

The ac­cused banks al­so fired back on the or­ders, re­ject­ing the al­le­ga­tions and sim­i­lar­ly cit­ing a lack of ev­i­dence.

Bro­ker­age firm Vec­tor said Wednes­day night in a state­ment that it “cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­jects any al­le­ga­tion that com­pro­mis­es its in­sti­tu­tion­al in­tegri­ty” while In­ter­cam said in a state­ment it de­nies be­ing in­volved in any “il­le­gal prac­tice.” Vec­tor is owned by en­tre­pre­neur Al­fon­so Ro­mo, who served as chief of staff to ex-Pres­i­dent An­drés Manuel López Obrador ear­ly in his pres­i­den­cy.

Manuel So­moza, pres­i­dent of strate­gies of CIBan­co, told lo­cal press that they on­ly heard about the or­der the same time it was made pub­lic, and not­ed that it wasn’t a for­mal le­gal ac­cu­sa­tion, but rather an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Our books are open,” he said. ”Ru­mors are clear­ly dam­ag­ing, whether they’re true or not. So, what we want is for (Amer­i­can au­thor­i­ties) to come and in­ves­ti­gate.”

Shein­baum said they were no­ti­fied by Amer­i­can of­fi­cials of the ac­cu­sa­tions ahead of the Wednes­day an­nounce­ment, and that Mex­i­can fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tors car­ried out their own in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­sti­tu­tions.

They found “ad­min­is­tra­tive in­frac­tions,” she said, but noth­ing close to the ac­cu­sa­tions be­ing levied by Trea­sury of­fi­cials.

In the or­ders block­ing trans­ac­tions be­tween the three in­sti­tu­tions and Amer­i­can banks, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion al­leged that the three com­pa­nies fa­cil­i­tat­ed mil­lions of dol­lars in trans­fers with Chi­nese com­pa­nies, which it said were used to buy chem­i­cals to pro­duce fen­tanyl. The Trea­sury De­part­ment said the in­sti­tu­tions had fa­cil­i­tat­ed trans­fers to U.S. banks, but of­fi­cials would not name which U.S. in­sti­tu­tions were im­pli­cat­ed nor pro­vide more de­tails.

Shein­baum coun­tered that their own in­ves­ti­ga­tion sim­ply showed that in­sti­tu­tions had strong re­la­tion­ships with Chi­nese clients and banks, which she said was more of an in­di­ca­tor that the two coun­tries share a ro­bust trade re­la­tion­ship. Chi­na has been the main source of chem­i­cal pre­cur­sors to pro­duce fen­tanyl in Mex­i­co, ac­cord­ing to U.S. au­thor­i­ties. At the same time, the U.S. has in­creas­ing­ly sought to block grow­ing Chi­nese in­flu­ence and in­vest­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca.

The leader al­so ex­pressed frus­tra­tion on Thurs­day morn­ing, re­mind­ing Trump of­fi­cials that Mex­i­co is a sov­er­eign na­tion and must be treat­ed as an equal by the U.S. gov­ern­ment.

“We’re no one’s piña­ta,” she said. “Mex­i­co must be re­spect­ed.” —MEX­I­CO CITY (AP)

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Sto­ry by MEGAN JANET­SKY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press