Colombian Crypto Broker Sentenced to 160 Months in New York for Laundering Drug Proceeds: About $14.5 Million in USDT, Plus a Cocaine Import Plot
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced on October 21 that Colombian cryptocurrency broker Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque, also known as "Rey," was sentenced that day by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil to 160 months in prison (13 years and 4 months). He had been charged alongside five other defendants in connection with schemes to launder hundreds of millions of dollars, including narcotics sale proceeds, and to import nine kilograms of cocaine into the United States; all five co-defendants had previously been sentenced.
According to the charging instruments and statements made in open court, Zuluaga Duque, 63, a resident of Colombia, was a Colombia-based cryptocurrency broker who played a supervisory role in an international network that laundered proceeds of drug trafficking in Tether (USDT), a stablecoin connected to the U.S. dollar, through the United States to Colombia. Illicit proceeds were converted into Tether and transferred by Zuluaga Duque and co-defendant Erica Milena Lopez Ortiz to Maximilien De Hoop Cartier, who operated an unlicensed money transmitting business that converted the Tether into U.S. dollars. Using U.S.-based shell companies he controlled, Cartier then sent the dollars to Colombian companies controlled by Felipe Estrada Echeverry and others, where the money was converted into Colombian pesos and delivered for distribution. Between May and November 2023, the group laundered about $14.5 million in Tether derived from drug trafficking. Cartier previously pled guilty and was sentenced to eight years in prison; his unlicensed business transmitted more than $470 million in illicit proceeds through the United States.
Prosecutors also charged that Zuluaga Duque conspired to import cocaine: in November 2023, confidential sources working at law enforcement's direction coordinated the purchase of about nine kilograms of cocaine paste, to be manufactured into cocaine and delivered to New York, and Zuluaga Duque received a commission for helping arrange the deal. In February 2024, a source arranged a further purchase of about 100 kilograms of cocaine paste, and the Colombian National Police executed search warrants and recovered about 111 kilograms of cocaine paste from Alexander and Adrian Areiza Ceballos before the deal went ahead.
In addition to prison, Zuluaga Duque was sentenced to five years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $14,751,846, as well as the cryptocurrency tokens previously held in four addresses he controlled. His co-defendants received the following terms: Cartier 96 months, Lopez Ortiz 60 months, Estrada Echeverry 48 months, Alexander Egidio Areiza Ceballos 66 months, and Adrian Fernando Areiza Ceballos 36 months.
"The defendant and his conspirators operated a sophisticated international scheme to utilize cryptocurrency, a network of shell companies in the U.S. and Colombia, and numerous crypto accounts, to exploit the U.S. financial system to launder the proceeds of hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money and other criminal proceeds," said U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald. The case was investigated by the FBI's New York Field Office, Homeland Security Investigations' New York El Dorado Task Force, and IRS Criminal Investigation's Global Illicit Finance Team, with assistance from the Colombian National Police and the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs, and is being prosecuted by the office's Illicit Finance and Money Laundering unit.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 纽约 Thurgood Marshall 联邦法院大楼（美国纽约南区联邦地区法院所在地）资料图。照片：Kidfly182 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in New York, home of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (file photo). Photo: Kidfly182, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- 2026-10-21Colombian Cryptocurrency Broker Sentenced to 160 Months: About $14.5 Million in Drug Proceeds Laundered Through U.S. Shell Companies
- 2026-10-22Colombian Crypto Broker Sentenced to 160 Months in New York for Laundering Drug Proceeds: About $14.5 Million in USDT, Plus a Cocaine Import PlotThis story
