Dozens of people are facing charges in Los Angeles of helping launder millions of dollars in drug trafficking proceeds for the Sinaloa Cartel and affiliated criminal groups, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
The scheme’s alleged ringleader, Gurkaran Singh Isshpunani, was arrested last month in Buffalo, New York, as he attempted to cross the border from Canada, according to federal prosecutors, who said the defendant was brought to Los Angeles late Thursday.
Isshpunani and the others are charged in a 36-page indictment that outlines the workings of a “hawala” — an alternative form or method of money remittance which operates outside of traditional banking or financial systems. Through such transactions, only the value of the money is transferred, not the money itself.
According to the indictment, Isshpunani is part of a network of Indian men who move money based on a trust system.
Isshpunani, 34, of Ontario, Canada, is the lead defendant in a Los Angeles federal grand jury indictment charging 22 people — including seven fugitives — with money laundering conspiracy and operating unlicensed money remitting businesses violations. Fifteen of the defendants have been arrested.
The scheme allegedly spanned the world, involving operatives in Canada, India, the United States and Mexico, authorities said. The laundered money is thought to have either been transported to the Sinaloa Cartel or reinvested in additional narcotics.
Prosecutors allege the network transferred more than $4.5 million in narcotics proceeds and was involved in the trafficking of 29 kilograms of cocaine and about 90 pounds of methamphetamine.
However, during the course of a four-year federal wiretap investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, authorities seized over $15 million in U.S. currency, 321 kilograms of cocaine, 98 pounds of methamphetamine, 11 kilograms of ecstasy and nine kilograms of heroin, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The money laundering conspiracy charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Each of two counts related to the alleged unlicensed money transmitting business carries a maximum of five years, prosecutors said.
— City News Service