Is The Sinoloa Cartel Still Making Money Without El Chapo

Tao Liu admitted he tried to bribe a U.S. official to get fake passports for himself and his friends after they were netted by DEA agents in a money laundering scheme connected to the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. (Photo: Alexandria (Virginia) Sheriff's Office.)

A Hong Kong businessman who helped launder trust drug money flew to GU in Octto apprehend simulated U.S. passports.

What he got instead was a private jet escort to Virginia flanked aside federal agents.

Tao Liu, a venture capitalist who dressed up as Santa Claus for disadvantaged youthfulness in New York, right away awaits sentencing for trying to corrupt a open official to get the passports and for laundering money for drug traffickers — including Mexico's ill-famed Sinaloa Cartel.

Liu was portion of an extensive network of Chinese nationals blamed for hiding the true origin of more than $30 million, mainly from cocaine sales, geological dating back to 2008.

A senior official with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Brass, who asked not to personify named to protect the predisposition of his bring up, aforementioned Chinese business community have long assisted Mexican cartels in a sort of lucrative money laundering schemes, playing a key role in the deadliest drug crisis in American history.

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Recently, the numbers of such partnerships fashioned to move and launder do drugs profits experience been revolt, according to the DEA's 2022 National Drug Threat Assessment. The fanlike-sweeping case involving Liu illustrates how agents increasingly are targeting the money laundering networks, trying to cripple drug rings by cutting off their cash provide.

Liu was stunned when special agents with the DEA arrested him in GU in October.

"It's startling to know the government is willing to come get you overseas," aforesaid Liu's lawyer, Jonathan Simms. "I've never had someone fictive a esoteric jet. It made it convenient for them to interrogate him on the way up here."

Tao Liu, dressed up as Santa for a New York charity event, pleaded guilty in April to money laundering and trying to bribe a U.S. official. (Photo filed by Liu's defense attorney in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.)

Liu, a father of four, discussed the case with agents happening the plane ride and ultimately pleaded guilty in April to bribery for offering $150,000 per fake passport from individual he thought was a corrupt Department of State Department formal but who actually was an undercover DEA agent.

He was expiration to pay the bribe with wire transfers and cryptocurrency. Liu lived in Hong Kong just oft traveled to the U.S. and Mexico. Other Chinese businessmen relocated to the United States, Belize, Guatemala and United Mexican States to set up elaborate networks to follow out several sophisticated money laundering schemes.

Wendy Woolcock, Special Agent in Charge for the Drug Enforcement Agency Special Operations Variance, issued a statement in April after three of the defendants pleaded unrighteous, blaming the money laundering ring for routing "millions of dollars in drug proceeds indorse to the cartels, allowing the criminal organizations to further their activities, flooding our communities with dangerous drugs, causation devastating addictions and dying."

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The network also is accused of hiding drug money in casinos, Republic of Guatemala in advance companies solely wont to hide the money, and through U.S. and foreign bank accounts, according to court records.

Members of the money laundering network often would drive or rainfly mass hard currency, typically in increments of $300,000 to $350,000, across U.S.A to avoid depositing too much in the L.A. field, reported to attorneys familiar with the case.

They kept an emergency brake pocketbook of cash hidden in Mexico in case they lost a shipment in the U.S. through a police sting or a three-fold-crossing employee, because they didn't wishing to owe the cartels.

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The money launderers also used drug profits to buy in American and Chinese goods, which they could mail to cartels in Mexico, where those products are in demand.

Umpteen court documents in the encase remain sealed. But those available describe an elaborate run peso schema that used a series of steps to sooner or later send the drug net in reply to Mexican cartels in their own currentness.

Job transactions were discussed along the encrypted cell phone applications WhatsApp and WeChat, where one of the user names was "SUPERKING99."

Simms said Liu was on the fringes of the money laundering meshwork.

"I don't think he understood the danger or the extent of the narcotising activity" or which cartels were convoluted, Simms said.

"He necessary accession to American hard cash and they needed renminbi," Chinese currentness famous as RMB. So Liu went on with the scheme but felt safer not asking questions about WHO was calling the shots, his lawyer said.

Alleged drug trafficker Xizhi Li is accused of using U.S. banks and his Guatemala casino to launder millions of dollars of drug profits for Mexican cartels. He maintains his innocence. (Source: Alexandria (Va.) Sheriff's Office)

Prosecutors allege in motor hotel motions that Xizhi Fifty-one, 45, WHO lived in United Mexican States, played a more pivotal role in the crimes, with a square connection to El Chapo, the notorious former head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Li likewise "forged close ties" with drug organizations in Colombia and Guatemala, prosecutors say in the indictment.

51, who went by "Z," maintains his innocence connected charges of money laundering and conspiracy to traffic more than 5 kilograms of cocaine.

Amid the investigation, Lithium derelict his L.A. restaurant to move to Guatemala. He opened a casino, which prosecutors argue was used to launder do drugs money in Guatemala City.

Investigators targeting a large dose ring in Memphis, Tennessee, stumbled onto a connection to the Sinaloa Cartel, which supplied the cocaine — and to Xizhi Li, World Health Organization allegedly helped launder profits from its sale.

In 2022, investigators in Miami seized more than $617,000 from a bank business relationship they claim belonged to Xizhi Li, using the name "Franco Ley Tan," one of his 13 aliases, according to an affidavit aside a DEA task ram down officer.

DEA agents in Memphis took control of the money as part of their investigation. Li never tried to get the money rear, so a federal judge issued a nonpayment judgment last year to waiver the money to the governing.

Prosecutors and defense attorney John Kiyonaga, who represents Li, declined to comment before trial.

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While Cardinal ran his eating place in Los Angeles, he befriended California businessman Eric Yong Woo, 43, whom he allegedly lured into the cabal. Woo pleaded not guilty to money laundering charges, and some are regular to go happening trial in Grand.

Attorney Robert Lee Jenkins Jr., WHO represents Woo, told The Courier Daybook his client moved from China to America's West Coast and ran a legitimate business importing and exportation goods from his homeland.

"Mr. Woo had No knowledge of some drug activities," Jenkins said. "Mr. Court was taken vantage of."

Atomic number 3, who closely-held a restaurant in Los Angeles, befriended Woo using an alias, Jenkins alleges. Li claimed his restaurant was headed for bankruptcy, then Woo agreed to let his friend set up a bank account in his name to protect business assets from creditors, the attorney said.

Prosecutors say the account was actually used to funnel shape do drugs money, and they receive "overwhelming prove" against Woo, according to their apparent movement persuading a jurist that Woo is a flight risk and should remain jailed until his trial.

They state they found a draft of an application for a passport with Woo's photo but another discover.

Prosecutors also cited concerns about Woo's history of international travel to Mexico; Suriname in South America; Red China and elsewhere.

Woo had asked to stay with a parent in the City of the Angels area pending trial and offered to fatigu an ankle monitoring device. However, prosecutors argued that Romance's parents are in their 70s, do not speak English and would be ineffectual to stop their Word from escaping.

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Helium remains in a immure in Warsaw, Old Dominion, until his trial.

Liu and codefendants Jiayu Chen, of Brooklyn, Empire State; and Jingyuan Cardinal, of San Gabriel, California; admitted to conspiring to launder money during guilty pleas in April.

For each one faces up to 20 geezerhood in a federal prison when they are sentenced in July in U.S. Territorial dominion Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Others are at large or awaiting trial.

Jingyuan Li, 49, admitted he organized bulk cash shipments of drug profits inside the U.S. He also used a California-based seafood spell-export business, Shuoyu USA Iraqi National Congress., to buy goods, which were shipped to China and Hong Kong purchasable. The profits were dispatched to Mexico to repay the cartels.

Prosecutors say Jingyuan Li, who was born in Republic of China, often spent time in Mexico and San Gabriel, California, and laundered leastways $3.8 million.

Agents haven't been able to find the one-third defendant, Jianxing Chen, 40, who is charged with money laundering but remains a fugitive. He was born in Chinaware and has been living in Belize. Prosecutors allege in the indictment He traveled to Greater New York, Los Angeles, Cancun, Guatemala City and elsewhere to serve launder money and had a business interest in Li's casino.

Simms called the scope of this net "massive, in all likelihood the biggest and nigh complex money laundering case I've seen.

"The layers continue and on."

Reporter Beth Warren: bwarren@courier-journal.com; 502-582-7164; Chitter @BethWarrenCJ.