CLEVELAND, Ohio – One of the first hints of trouble for Susana Ramirez Orozco came in June when an ally got caught in Euclid with nearly $92,000 in drug proceeds.
A month later, she was in handcuffs.
Ramirez Orozco, 40, is accused of using a web of couriers to collect drug money in Cleveland and funnel it to Mexican banks to fuel large-scale drug operations, according to records filed in Ohio and California.
Ramirez Orozco, a Mexican national, was indicted this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on conspiracy to commit money laundering and other charges stemming from her role as a financial conduit for distributors.
The case highlights Cleveland’s connection to the Mexican drug pipeline. It also underscores the lengths that law enforcement goes to identify and trace the money of major traffickers.
Ramirez Orozco has denied the charges. Her attorney, Richard Raynor, declined to discuss the case.
An agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in an affidavit that a financial crimes unit in Los Angeles began investigating the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in November 2018 for its ties to Mexico, Colombia and the United States. The cartel is one of the fastest-growing criminal organizations in Mexico.
In July 2019, an informant met with agents about Ramirez Orozco. The affidavit identified her as “a Mexico-based money launderer believed to be laundering funds on behalf of [Jalisco Nueva Generacion.]”
The informant told the DEA that Ramirez Orozco claimed to have had millions of dollars in drug profits across the United States that needed to be picked up and wired to Mexican bank accounts.
In March, the informant introduced an undercover DEA agent to Ramirez Orozco. The agent claimed to be a money broker from Los Angeles who retrieved drug proceeds from the United States and shipped them elsewhere in exchange for a commission, according to court documents.
Ramirez Orozco and two other unidentified men worked with the DEA agent to coordinate cash pickups and send the money to accounts in Mexican banks, the affidavit says. Ramirez Orozco told the agent that she also had money in Texas and Virginia that needed to be sent to Mexico.
The first transaction, a test, came in Cleveland on April 9. According to court records, the DEA agent used undercover officers to pick up $19,980 from a courier. The money was then sent from an undercover DEA account in Los Angeles to a bank account in Mexico that Ramirez Orozco had provided, the records show.
Ramirez Orozco said she “hoped to be able to solicit pickups of approximately $200,000 each week from Cleveland to be transferred to Mexico,” the agent said in the document.
On May 5, the DEA agent coordinated a pickup of $28,845 in Cleveland, according to the affidavit. A courier delivered the money in a white trash bag that was inside a pink shoulder bag. The money was later transferred from the DEA account to a Mexican bank account that Ramirez Orozco had provided, the document says.
Three weeks later, undercover officers picked up $43,555 in Cleveland, and the DEA agent shipped the money again to Mexico at Ramirez Orozco’s urging, the affidavit says. The next day, the agent told Ramirez Orozco that their arrangement had to end, according to the court document.
“I told her that I had bigger clients and that her amounts were not worth it,” the agent wrote in the affidavit.
Ramirez Orozco urged the undercover officer to continue, that there would be a larger role to play and the amounts would increase, according to the document. She discussed the agent collecting and funneling as much as $400,000 a month to Mexican accounts.
On June 9, Ramirez Orozco worked out a plan with the agent to pick up and launder nearly $92,000 in illicit money from Cleveland, court records say. Undercover officers were to pick up the cash from a courier for Ramirez Orozco.
Before the transfer, a trooper of the Ohio State Highway Patrol stopped the courier’s car. A drug dog spotted the cash hidden in the car, investigators aid. A patrol official would not discuss the stop or provide information about it.
Within weeks of the seizure, Ramirez Orozco came to Cleveland. Authorities arrested her here July 10. She made an initial appearance in federal court in Cleveland, but her case was transferred to Los Angeles.
She was indicted earlier this month, and she is being held without bond. Court records show her family is from Mexico, and she has few ties to the United States.
To many, the work of an undercover DEA agent sending tens of thousands of dollars in drug money from Cleveland to a Mexican bank raises more than a few alarms about how far law enforcement can go in investigating traffickers. In such investigations, high-level officials at the Justice Department are required to monitor and approve the work.
“This isn’t something that is randomly done,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations with the DEA. “It is highly regulated. We’re able to follow the money and see where it goes. Most money launderers work for more than one cartel. We’re able to identify people by doing this.”
Jonathan Witmer-Rich, a professor at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, agreed.
“There are lines to be drawn, for sure, but to gain evidence – and not just to get the guy on the corner, but to get to the upper levels of a conspiracy – it is needed,” he said. “In many cases, it is the only way to build significant cases, as opposed to just getting that guy on the corner.”
"flow" - Google News
November 25, 2020 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/2Hy7rya
From Cleveland to Mexico: Authorities help stem the flow of drug profits in arrest of accused money launderer - cleveland.com
"flow" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Sw6Z5O
https://ift.tt/2zNW3tO
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "From Cleveland to Mexico: Authorities help stem the flow of drug profits in arrest of accused money launderer - cleveland.com"
Post a Comment