In October 2015, Fyffes abruptly terminated a purchase contract with the Mayan King farms in Belize. Mayan King had been responsible for around one quarter of Belize's banana exports and employed approximately 1,200 people. Workers at the farm protested in fear of losing their jobs. Fyffes stopped buying bananas from the farm in response to the farms' alleged continued affiliation with John Zabaneh, whom the US treasury department had named in 2012 as having ties to Mexican drug baron Joaquín Guzmán ("El Chapo"), leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Zabaneh had strenuously denied any such ties, but under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, US citizens and organizations had been effectively banned from doing business with him and any organizations linked to him. Fyffes had severed links with Zabaneh and his interests in 2012 when the treasury department named him as a narcotics trafficker, but had restored ties with Mayan King as a supplier after the banana growers' association assured it that Zabaneh was no longer involved in it and that a company unconnected with him, Meridian Farms, had taken control of Mayan King.