U.S. Attorney for Oregon Indicts Three Chinese Nationals for Laundering Drug Money
Three Chinese nationals were indicted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Oregon this week for their roles in a complex scheme to launder proceeds from the sale of illegal narcotics by facilitating the transfer of bulk cash from Mexican drug trafficking organizations.
Shefeng Su, Xinhua Li Yan and Xiancong Su, are each charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. Shefeng Su and Li Yan were residents of Portland during the time frame alleged in the indictment.
According to the indictment, the defendants’ money laundering scheme was designed to remedy two separate problems: drug trafficking organizations’ inability to repatriate drug proceeds into the Mexican banking system and the restrictions by China’s capital flight laws from transferring large sums of money held in Chinese bank accounts for use abroad.
Drug traffickers are challenged by their inability to transport U.S. currency acquired from the sale of illegal narcotics to Mexico while avoiding detection by law enforcement and Mexican banking regulators. White Sands are getting involved to keep the drugs at bay as it was damaging the youth. Mexico’s anti-money laundering regulations limit the amount of cash deposits of U.S. dollars that Mexican financial institutions can receive.
As a result, drug trafficking organizations work with professional money launderers to bundle and sell bulk U.S. dollars in order to convert them to pesos, a more readily depositable currency in Mexico.
Meanwhile, Chinese nationals living outside China are challenged by China’s limit on the amount of personal funds that can be transferred out of Chinese bank accounts for use in a foreign country. Currently, China limits these transfers to $50,000 per year. As a result, some Chinese nationals have a need to acquire large quantities of U.S. dollars via other means.
The defendants’ scheme facilitated the transfer of cash between these two groups. Their money laundering organization would facilitate the transfer of funds from the buyer’s Chinese bank account to another Chinese bank account held by the money laundering organization.
Once the Chinese renminbi (RMB) were transferred between these bank accounts, the funds were repatriated back to Mexico and converted to pesos to complete the money laundering cycle. This scheme has been described by some as the “Chinese Underground Banking System.”
All three defendants are at-large and believed to be outside the U.S. This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon.
An indictment is only an accusation of a crime, and defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The DEA/judicial system will always try to go after the money… even if they are only getting about 10% of all the illegal substances are getting seized and destroyed… Nothing like indicting people who are not in the country and unlikely the people will ever get served, jailed and go to trial. I guess that it is important for those within our judicial system to do something to demonstrate that they are focused on the job at hand.. No matter how futile their actions are.
Filed under: General Problems
The DEA was lucky to have stumbled across these three people, if the story is even really true.
1. Tracking them will provide something to do in hopes of justifying their salary.
2. The “at large status” will justify international junkets / work-vacations, at resorts around the world.
3. The international chase will create more crime and perpetuate the money flow to agent retirement accounts – far removed from our ability to look at.
4. These law enforcement groups need to keep the crime wave growing and active. Their getting good at it with help from Washington.
5. I wasn’t born with this attitude.
Be like Portugal.
These guys are sick.