Posted on 04/30/2020 9:13:49 AM PDT by bitt
Dirty money is piling up in Los Angeles. In the last three weeks, federal agents made three seizures that each netted more than $1 million in suspected drug proceeds.
The reason, according to the city’s top drug enforcement official: The coronavirus pandemic has slowed trade-based money laundering systems that drug trafficking groups use to repatriate profits and move Chinese capital into Southern California.
With storefronts closed, supply chains in disarray and the global economy in peril, these complex schemes are hobbled and cash is backing up in Los Angeles, Bill Bodner, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Los Angeles field division, said in an interview.
The recent million-dollar interceptions were reminiscent of seizures the DEA made before drug traffickers embraced trade-based money laundering, said Bodner, a 28-year agent.
The shuttering of nonessential businesses has made a “tremendous impact” on a money laundering system dubbed the black market peso exchange, he said. In the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles — the exchange’s epicenter — drug trafficking groups from throughout the country use wholesalers to remit profits to Mexico, according to cases filed in federal courts in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Steven Mygrant, a federal prosecutor in Oregon who charged six people with laundering heroin proceeds through Los Angeles businesses, said two primary factors drive the exchange: Drug trafficking groups need to convert dollars to pesos, which is expensive to do legitimately, and they need to move money from the United States to Mexico, which is risky to transport in cash.
To accomplish this, Mygrant said, a broker pays pesos for the drug traffickers’ dollars. The traffickers deliver cash to an exporter in Los Angeles, who ships goods — commonly clothing, cosmetics, jewelry or sportswear — to a retailer in Mexico. The retailer sells the goods for pesos
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Gov Hair Gel Newsom sent a billion to China to be laundered.
Contact mayor DeBlasio’s wife- she can make hundreds of millions disappear!
Redistribute that money to Americans. Seize all Communist Chinese property and redistribute to Americans.
Good point: go after the CCP, not the PRC. A political party cannot claim sovereign immunity.
Democrat politicians hardest hit.
For all its problems, Los Angeles is still one of the better cities in Mexico.
Yep, they will figure out a way to keep their money flowing.
Look who owns high-end (Merc, BMW, Porsche, Lambo, etc.) used car dealerships in college towns - Chinese H1B, Green card holders, first gen Chinese.
They buy cars with a wad of cash and finance the sale to Chinese students.
Dirty Chinese money becomes Clean Chinese money.
That is a profound observation. The last I read, he is overpaying 2 to 3 dollars per mask. The questions are: why buy from China, and why overpay? It raises questions of cronyism, payoffs, and money laundering.
Send the money to my girl. It’ll be gone in two hours and no one will have any idea where it went.
Rut Roh. Unintended consequences. So what happens when the Dems aren’t getting their payouts from the drug cartels?
That will surely put a real dent in all those illegal operations.
LOL!!
btt
The money could help to pay down the federal debt.
Another silver lining!
Your Nigerian address, I presume?
Come ON!
This just HAS to be from the Babylon Bee!
American women pay takes and take PRIDE in walking around in raggedy assed jeans!
Depends on what state the seizure is in.
A lot of States have been enacting civil forfeiture reform.
Banks don’t report that as suspicious activity unless it’s actually truly suspicious. Taking 10k out to buy a car doesn’t alert anyone or anything.
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