U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual | U.S. Department of Justice
A Chinese national has been sentenced to ten years in prison by a federal judge in Chicago for laundering $62 million from illegal drug activities on behalf of Mexican traffickers. From 2016 to 2018, Haiping Pan engaged in a scheme that involved laundering up to $3 million per month through secretive money pickups across major U.S. cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. The process also included currency swaps between the United States, China, and Mexico.
Pan utilized his international financial expertise and connections with members or associates of Mexican drug cartels to manage the clandestine flow of drug money through global businesses and banks. Ultimately, these illicit proceeds were returned to traffickers in Mexico.
During the conspiracy period, Pan and his co-conspirators conducted an average of one to two pickups weekly, handling amounts ranging from $150,000 to $1 million each time. Overall, Pan knowingly participated in laundering approximately $62 million.
Pan is a 44-year-old Chinese national who orchestrated these money transfers while residing in Guadalajara, Mexico. He was arrested there and extradited to the United States in 2022. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman handed down the ten-year sentence during a hearing held on Thursday at a federal court in Chicago.
The sentencing announcement was made by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Sean Fitzgerald, Special Agent-in-Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Chicago; and Ramsey E. Covington, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation's Chicago Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard M. Rothblatt represented the government.
"The defendant was a significant part of a recent phenomenon in which a relatively small network of Chinese money brokers based in Mexico have come to dominate international money laundering markets," stated the government’s sentencing memorandum. "Defendant’s crimes allowed his drug trafficking clients to secure the fruits of their pernicious trade faster, cheaper, and more securely than ever before."
Several other individuals were convicted as part of this federal investigation into money laundering activities linked with drug trafficking networks. Among them were Pan's co-conspirators Xianbing Gan who received a 14-year sentence and Huanxin Long who was sentenced to five and a half years.
