Twelve people have been charged and a global criminal organization that is accused of laundering at least $16.5 million for the Sinaloa cartel has been dismantled following a two-year investigation by the FBI and DEA, according to a news release.
Cristian Amaya Nava, the first defendant, was given a sentence of 60 months in jail in federal court for extortion and money laundering, according to the release. Under his guilty deal, he acknowledged that in February 2021 he coerced two victims into taking money out of their own accounts to pay off a drug debt. He also acknowledged laundering more than $2.4 million for the cartel.
“Mexican drug cartels cannot succeed without money launderers," U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said in a statement. "Our office will prosecute not only those who traffic in drugs but also those who enable the drug traffickers through sophisticated shell corporations and multiple bank accounts.”
A superseding indictment states that after FBI investigators discovered a complicated money laundering network in the fall of 2020, an investigation was launched. This organization was reportedly run by Enrique Daan Esparragoza Rosas of Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico. According to the indictment, Esparragoza's group used a system of fictitious businesses registered in Wyoming to launder millions of dollars in cash that belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel. The indictment said that Mesa, Arizona resident Luis Ramirez, a citizen of the United States, was responsible for creating and managing the shell businesses and a sophisticated financial network.
In order to collect large sums of cash from drug traffickers, Ramirez and Esparragoza organized and assisted personnel of the money laundering company to travel to several American locations. The workers collected the bulk of the cash in Chicago, Omaha, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, Charlotte and Philadelphia. Traffickers in drugs handed out large sums of cash, up to $200,000, to employees in hotel rooms and parking lots. After receiving the illicit cash, the criminal organization used the shell firms to launder them before transferring them to Mexican bank accounts. Several of the organization's bank accounts were targeted in total and $1 million in cash and around $197,430 in bulk money were taken from those accounts.
