Florida.— IMG Academy, a private, high-performance school in Bradenton, accepted for five consecutive years the payment of tuition by two alleged leaders of the Mexican drug trafficking organization so that their children (also student-athletes) attended the school between 2018 and 2022.
The institution now faces a settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for $1.7 million for violating the Kingpin Act.
Between 2018 and 2022, IMG Academy signed annual enrollment contracts with two individuals identified by the Treasury Department as “SDN 1” and “SDN 2.” Both are sanctioned under the Kingpin Act for their economic ties and support to a Mexican-based criminal organization.
The payments, covering tuition, housing and other expenses, ranged from $47,000 to more than $100,000 per academic year. Throughout that period, the school processed the transactions without verifying that the individuals responsible were on the sanctions blacklist.
OFAC determined that IMG Academy incurred at least 89 possible violations of financial sanctions between 2019 and 2025. The settlement amount ($1.72 million) reflects that the institution did not voluntarily self-disclose the infractions and that these were deemed not serious by the authority.
Although the school notified OFAC as soon as it became aware of the facts, the agency had already begun an investigation. As mitigating factors, the Treasury considered that IMG Academy had no sanctions history in the last five years, substantially cooperated with the authorities, and, after a change of ownership in 2023, implemented a sanctions-compliance program.
The official document states that the payments allowed the children of two leaders of a Mexican criminal organization to access elite academic and athletic training in the United States. “A minimal due diligence at any point in this process would have revealed that these clients were sanctioned,” the report emphasizes.
The case serves as a warning to academic institutions: OFAC reminds that sanctioned individuals, like anyone else, may seek educational opportunities for their families in the United States, and that schools must implement effective controls to detect payments coming from illicit actors.
