Ismail J. Ramsey, U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California
Jose Luis Garcia, co-owner of Envios Express in Oakland, has been sentenced to 12 months in federal prison. The sentencing was delivered by United States District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. on January 15, 2025.
Garcia, aged 57 and a resident of Oakland, was indicted in July 2023 and pleaded guilty in September 2024 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h).
Court documents and Garcia's plea agreement reveal that he and his wife owned a money transmitting business on International Boulevard in Oakland. This business operated under several names, including Envios Express, and was contracted with national wire service companies for providing wire transfer services. As a local agent, Garcia had access to services that allowed the transfer of funds from Oakland to other parts of the United States as well as countries like Mexico and Honduras.
Despite completing annual Anti-Money Laundering training through these companies and being the designated compliance officer for Envios Express, Garcia admitted to using fake sender names and IDs to process multiple structured wires. These actions were intended to conceal transactions exceeding $3,000 from mandatory federal reporting requirements. He accepted large cash amounts from unidentified customers who wanted funds wired to drug trafficking areas without recording true sender identities. Garcia misused legitimate customer information for this purpose and kept approximately 15,000 digital images of various identity cards on cell phones.
In August 2022, Garcia agreed to wire $9,200 in cash for a confidential source without proper identification or using real names as required by law. He structured the amount into four separate wires with fake sender names and charged an additional fee.
Besides the prison term, Judge Gilliam ordered three years of supervised release for Garcia.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey along with IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent Linda Nguyen and DEA Special Agent Bob P. Beris.
This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation aimed at disrupting high-level criminal organizations through coordinated efforts among various law enforcement agencies.
Assistant United States Attorneys Daniel Pastor and Nicholas Parker are leading the prosecution with support from Amanda Martinez and Andy Ding following investigations by IRS-CI and DEA.
