Federal prosecutors said on Tuesday that a five-year research by U.S. officers found a complex relationship between one of Mexico’s most famous drug cartel and Chinese underground finance organizations that laundered money from the sale of fentanyl, cocaine, and other medications.
More than$ 50 million in drug profits, the prosecutors claimed in a press release, were being stifled by members of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Two few people have been charged. defendants who fled the United States after being originally charged last year were helped by Mexican and Chinese law enforcement.
At a press conference, Drug Enforcement Administration standard Anne Milgram stated that” this research shows that the Sinaloa cartel has entered into a new legal agreement with Chinese citizens who launder income for the cartel.”
East Los Angeles resident Edgar Joel Martinez- Reyes, 45, of East Los Angeles, was accused of managing couriers who collected drug money in the Los Angeles area. According to authorities, Martinez-Reyes forged contracts with the cartel’s leader and traveled with him to Mexico.
Martinez- Reyes ‘ attorney did not respond to a request for comment via email and phone.
According to the prosecution, the scheme relied on the enormous demand for U.S. currency from wealthy Chinese citizens, who are prohibited from leaving China for more than$ 50 000 annually by their government’s capital flight restrictions.
According to the authorities, a person in China would move money into the seller’s Chinese bank account and receive the dollar equivalent in the U. S. for use in purchasing real estate, luxury items, and paying tuition. They claimed that the drug money was also moved by cryptocurrency transactions, adding that China’s funds are used to purchase items like chemicals for the manufacture of fentanyl and methamphetamine, which are then delivered to Mexican drug cartels.
According to the officials, the Chinese money brokers offered overall less expensive methods than previous methods of moving money, such as smuggling truckloads of cash across the U.S. Mexico border or going through banks and businesses, and charged a much lower percentage commission fee than traditional money launderers.
The drugs being sold here in the United States are then being used to fund precursor chemicals that will be used to make even more drugs that are sent into our country, Estrada said.
Federal law enforcement has worked closely with the Ministry of Public Security in China since , the meeting last November , between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Woodside, California, according to Estrada.
At least 22 of the 24 defendants have been arrested, Estrada said. One count of conspiracy to aid and abet the distribution of cocaine and methamphetamine, one count of conspiracy to launder money, and one count of conspiracy to run an unlicensed money-transmitting business are brought against them.
According to the news release, the majority of those in custody will be arraigned in the upcoming weeks in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Authorities said law enforcement also seized about$ 5 million in drugs, including just over 300 pounds ( 135 kilograms ) of cocaine and 92 pounds ( 41 kilograms ) of methamphetamine as well as other drugs and several firearms.
