Prosecutors are charging three Colombian nationals and a purported direct descendant of the Cartier watch and jewelry-making household for allegedly laundering a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
In keeping with the indictment unsealed by the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York, Maximilien de Hoop Cartier, Leonardo De Jesus Zuluaga Duque, Erica Milena Lopez Ortiz and Felipe Estrada Echeverry are charged with conspiring to commit cash laundering.
The indictment additional says that the 4 people belong to a community that laundered thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of the stablecoin Tether (USDT) – cash that allegedly got here from drug trafficking.
“The Community makes use of a system of cash laundering brokers and shell firms within the US, Colombia, and elsewhere to, amongst different issues, launder crime proceeds by the US to Colombia. Between in or about Could 2023 and November 2023, Cartier, Zuluaga Duque, Lopez Ortiz, Estrada Echeverry, and others used the community to launder a complete of roughly $14.5 million in Tether derived immediately from the proceeds of drug trafficking.”
In keeping with the indictment, Cartier operated an over-the-counter (OTC) crypto alternate whereas controlling and working US-based shell firms that held financial institution accounts at numerous US lenders.
“In opening these financial institution accounts, Cartier misrepresented the true nature of the enterprise of the Cartier Shell Firms – i.e., Cartier claimed to the banks that the Cartier Shell Firms had been within the enterprise of software program or know-how when, in reality, Cartier was utilizing the businesses to function as an unlicensed cash remitting enterprise associated to the operation of a cryptocurrency alternate.
From January 2020 to the current, Cartier’s unlicensed money-transmitting enterprise executed a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of illegal transactions and laundered a whole bunch of thousands and thousands in prison proceeds, together with drug trafficking proceeds with Zuluaga Duque, Lopez Ortiz, Estrada Echeverry between about Could and November 2023.”
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