TL;DR: A Colombian crypto dealer obtained a 160-month jail sentence in a US laundering and narcotics case, prosecutors introduced October 21. The account describes a scheme shifting felony proceeds via Tether and US shell firms.
A New York federal decide has sentenced Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque to 160 months in jail in a case involving cryptocurrency, drug proceeds and transfers via the US banking system.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the sentence on Wednesday. Choose Mary Kay Vyskocil additionally imposed 5 years of supervised launch and ordered forfeiture of $14,751,846, in line with prosecutors.
The workplace described Zuluaga Duque as a Colombia-based crypto dealer with a supervisory position within the community. It stated he and others helped launder roughly $14.5 million in Tether derived from drug trafficking between Could and November 2023.
The Route Ran By Each Crypto And Banks
Prosecutors’ account describes proceeds transformed into Tether, handed to an unlicensed money-transmission enterprise and exchanged for US {dollars}. US shell firms then transferred funds to Colombian firms earlier than the cash was transformed into pesos and distributed.
The token switch was one hyperlink in a sequence that additionally relied on firms, forex conversion and banking entry. The proceeds finally reached recipients in native forex, prosecutors stated.
Monitoring a blockchain handle alone wouldn’t essentially clarify the industrial objective of an related financial institution switch. Conversely, a financial institution document may present the receiving firm with out revealing the sooner token motion. Reconstructing the whole route requires connecting these items.
The roughly $14.5 million laundering determine describes the Tether transactions attributed to the group. The separate forfeiture order units the quantity Zuluaga Duque should give up underneath the sentence; including these figures would overstate the proceeds described within the case.
The jail time period exceeds 13 years. Afterward, Zuluaga Duque faces the extra five-year interval of supervised launch introduced by prosecutors.
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