Eleven Individuals Charged- Investigation of Drug Money Laundering in the Money Remitter Industry

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https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga/pr/eleven-individuals-charged-following-investigation-targeting-drug-money-laundering

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Northern District of Georgia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Eleven Individuals Charged following Investigation of Drug Money Laundering in the Money Remitter Industry

ATLANTA - Eleven defendants have been charged with laundering drug money to Mexico through metro-Atlanta area money remitters during a three-year long federal investigation focused on money laundering by money remittance businesses.
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According to U.S. Attorney Horn, the indictments, and other information presented in court: In 2014, federal law enforcement agents began investigating individuals in the metro-Atlanta area that were suspected of laundering drug proceeds to Mexico. Federal agents utilized cooperating sources to infiltrate these individuals’ networks and determined that the money launderers frequently used small businesses to send funds out of the country via money remittance services. These small businesses allow customers to wire funds to individuals in other countries without using traditional bank accounts.

Investigators determined that managers and employees of a number of metro-Atlanta money remitters were knowingly helping the money launderers send drug proceeds to Mexico. During the course of the investigation, cooperating sources and an undercover law enforcement officer brought money that was represented as coming from drug sales to different remitters. The cooperating sources or undercover law enforcement officer made clear that the money came from the sale of illegal narcotics. In exchange for a kickback, managers and employees of nine different businesses allegedly agreed to launder purported drug funds to Mexico by breaking the transactions into smaller amounts and by listing fake sender names, addresses, and telephone numbers.

The investigation revealed that these nine money remitters allegedly transmitted more than $40 million over a roughly four-year timeframe. Federal agents determined that these remitters transmitted thousands of wires to individuals in Mexico that listed fake addresses and telephone numbers, which is how the bulk of the undercover proceeds were laundered.

The indictments allege that the defendants tried to conceal the source of the funds by circumventing the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires financial institutions - including money remitters - to monitor their clients for suspicious conduct and to obtain valid identification for high dollar remittances. The defendants allegedly kept their transfers under certain dollar amounts to avoid raising suspicion. Several of the defendants allegedly served as the Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (“BSA/AML”) Compliance Officers for their respective stores and were responsible for detecting and reporting these types of illicit financial transactions.

Federal agents conducted search warrants at several metro-Atlanta area money remitters and arrested nine defendants.
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