Prosecutors are charging three Colombian nationals and a purported direct descendant of the Cartier watch and jewelry-making family for allegedly laundering hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to the indictment unsealed 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 conspiring to commit money laundering.
The indictment further says that the four individuals belong to a network that laundered millions of dollars worth of the stablecoin Tether (USDT) – money that allegedly came 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 crime proceeds through the US to Colombia. Between in or about 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 the proceeds of drug trafficking.”
According to the indictment, Cartier operated an over-the-counter (OTC) crypto exchange while controlling and operating US-based shell companies that held bank accounts at various US lenders.
“In opening these bank accounts, Cartier misrepresented the true nature of the business of the Cartier Shell Companies – i.e., Cartier claimed to the banks that the Cartier Shell Companies were in the business of software or technology when, in fact, Cartier was using the companies to operate as an unlicensed money remitting business related to the operation of a cryptocurrency exchange.
From January 2020 to the present, Cartier’s unlicensed money-transmitting business executed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of unlawful transactions and laundered hundreds of millions in criminal proceeds, including drug trafficking proceeds with Zuluaga Duque, Lopez Ortiz, Estrada Echeverry between about May and November 2023.”
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