A 45-year-old Los Angeles man was charged in a $50 million scheme to launder Mexican cartel money
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Edgar Joel Martinez-Reyes, a 45-year-old Los Angeles man, has been charged in a $50 million scheme to launder Mexican cartel money. The scheme involved rich Chinese nationals who wanted luxury goods. The U.S. Department of Justice announced a multi-count indictment that charged more than a dozen Los Angeles members of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel and Chinese currency brokers with conspiring to launder drug money. The investigation has yielded $5 million in cash, cocaine, methamphetamine, Ecstasy, and magic mushrooms. The lead defendant, Martinez-Reyes, and other defendants used various methods to launder the money, including buying crypto, depositing money into bank accounts, buying precious metals and gems, and taking them to Mexico for sale. The scheme also involved Chinese money exchanges that assist rich Chinese nationals in transferring their money to the U.S. The brokers charged a commission fee to disguise the drug money. The defendants face a minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted on all charges. The Sinaloa drug cartel is responsible for the surging infusion of fentanyl in the U.S. in the past eight years. The cartel turned to Chinese money exchanges to get the money to Mexico. The DOJ stated that drug traffickers have partnered with Chinese underground money exchanges to take advantage of the large demand for U.S. dollars from Chinese nationals.
https://fortune.com/2024/06/18/45-year-old-los-angeles-man-charged-cartel-luxury-china/
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