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Prosecutors have charged three Colombian nationals and an alleged direct descendant of the Cartier watch and jewelry family with laundering hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to the indictment released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office 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 conspiracy to commit money laundering .
The indictment further alleges that the four individuals belong to a network that laundered millions of dollars worth of the stablecoin Tether (USDT) – money allegedly derived from drug trafficking.
“The network utilizes a system of money laundering brokers and shell companies in the US, Colombia and elsewhere to, among other things, launder the proceeds of crime through the US into Colombia. Between or around May 2023 and November 2023, Cartier, Zuluaga Duque, Lopez Ortiz, Estrada Echeverry, and others used the network to launder a total of approximately $14.5 million in Tether, derived directly from drug trafficking proceeds.
According to the indictment, Cartier operated an over-the-counter (OTC) crypto exchange while controlling and operating U.S.-based shell companies that had bank accounts with various U.S. lenders.
“In opening these bank accounts, Cartier misrepresented the true nature of the Cartier Shell Companies’ business – i.e., Cartier represented to the banks that the Cartier Shell Companies were in the business of software or technology, when in fact Cartier was directing the companies to to operate as an unlicensed money transfer business related to the operation of a cryptocurrency exchange.
From January 2020 to the present, Cartier’s unlicensed money transmission business has conducted hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit transactions and laundered hundreds of millions in criminal proceeds, including proceeds from drug trafficking with Zuluaga Duque, Lopez Ortiz and Estrada Echeverry between approximately May and November. 2023.”
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