Posted on 04/30/2020 9:13:49 AM PDT by bitt
Dirty money is piling up in Los Angeles. In the last three weeks, federal agents made three seizures that each netted more than $1 million in suspected drug proceeds.
The reason, according to the city’s top drug enforcement official: The coronavirus pandemic has slowed trade-based money laundering systems that drug trafficking groups use to repatriate profits and move Chinese capital into Southern California.
With storefronts closed, supply chains in disarray and the global economy in peril, these complex schemes are hobbled and cash is backing up in Los Angeles, Bill Bodner, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Los Angeles field division, said in an interview.
The recent million-dollar interceptions were reminiscent of seizures the DEA made before drug traffickers embraced trade-based money laundering, said Bodner, a 28-year agent.
The shuttering of nonessential businesses has made a “tremendous impact” on a money laundering system dubbed the black market peso exchange, he said. In the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles — the exchange’s epicenter — drug trafficking groups from throughout the country use wholesalers to remit profits to Mexico, according to cases filed in federal courts in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Steven Mygrant, a federal prosecutor in Oregon who charged six people with laundering heroin proceeds through Los Angeles businesses, said two primary factors drive the exchange: Drug trafficking groups need to convert dollars to pesos, which is expensive to do legitimately, and they need to move money from the United States to Mexico, which is risky to transport in cash.
To accomplish this, Mygrant said, a broker pays pesos for the drug traffickers’ dollars. The traffickers deliver cash to an exporter in Los Angeles, who ships goods — commonly clothing, cosmetics, jewelry or sportswear — to a retailer in Mexico. The retailer sells the goods for pesos
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
p
Seize the money and burn it.
Guess the criminals will learn and set up essential businesses to launder money through now
Send it to my house for proper disposal.
bkmk
Sounds like they need to start literally laundering the money, and use bleach.
;)
LOL
A million dollars in LA is like, less than the 17 cents in change I might find doing laundry.
“The traffickers deliver cash to an exporter in Los Angeles, who ships goods — commonly clothing, cosmetics, jewelry or sportswear — to a retailer in Mexico.”
I wonder if this is partly why so many illegals in images are wearing new looking current fashion?
Hey, would you dress in old rags if you didn’t pay taxes?
if you withdraw $10,000 in 100s and leave it in plain sight on your front seat, if you get pulled over for a cracked taillight the cops will probably steal your money as it ‘might’ be drug money. good luck getting it back. and the bank will report your withdrawal to the feds as suspicious activity. we are in a police state and the banking system is the secret police.
I have to smile seeing this. Something good is happening from this crisis, if it interrupts money laundering and other criminal activity.
Hundreds of Mexican shops prepay in pesos and then haul the goods across the border. You can see them filling up black trash bags in the LA garment district. With no out going customs checks going to Mexico the goods flow into
Mexico with little or no duty or inspection.
This article from the LA Times is manure. The reason why the drugs are not selling is because no one is getting out to purchase and it is getting harder to not be recognized in transport. The chain is broken but they are right in one way, it is the cause of the flu actions.
Every business is going broke the same way. If the demand cannot be filled by the supply for either lack of product, fat chance, or lack of delivery, and that ain’t happening as we see the gasoline overstock, then the business goes broke. Happening the same way all over the country.
And by saying that there is money backing up in L.A., that was going to be used for drugs, is a just and reliable inference into the illegals crossing the border loaded with junk and the state’s lack of effort to stop it.
Additionally, the California sales tax rate, for legally purchased items, can be as much as 8.25 percent without state changes. The state income tax for people just under $58K is 9.3%. A livable wage for two adults and two children, the average family, annually, is $61,670.40 in L.A. according to figures provided by the Living Wage Calculator out of L.A. What do they eat?
It is my opinion they are trying to justify screwing the people in a way that the locals think it isn’t the state’s fault for shutting down business while at the same time trying to justify the possibility of a tax raise to help themselves out of the debt they created for everyone to include themselves during the shut down. And this article is part of the scam.
rwood
I’ll be glad to do that just after you wire me a remittance fee for only $10,000 CDN and your bank information.
Farm prices will escalate.
Ping
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