Man Who Laundered $52 Million for the Sinaloa Cartel Sentenced to 41 Months in San Diego
A high-ranking member of a money laundering organization that washed about $52 million for Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel was sentenced in federal court in San Diego, California, on November 13 to 41 months in custody. Hector Paez-Garcia had previously been extradited from Panama to the United States, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California announced.
According to court records, the organization dispatched couriers around the country to collect drug proceeds from cartel-affiliated dealers. The couriers deposited the money in U.S. bank accounts held by fictitious companies, splitting deposits among multiple sham accounts and bank branches to avoid detection. From there, the money was often transferred to Mexico-based shell accounts controlled by Paez-Garcia or converted to cryptocurrency, and Paez-Garcia ensured it was properly disbursed to the Sinaloa Cartel. From 2020 until his arrest and extradition in 2023, he helped the organization launder approximately $52 million in illicit drug proceeds.
Since his arrest, the United States has continued to dismantle the organization, charging, extraditing and convicting several other key money launderers. To date, those efforts have produced charges against 51 defendants and the seizure of about 1,304 kilograms of methamphetamine, 34 kilograms of heroin, 11 kilograms of cocaine, 14 kilograms of fentanyl and more than $4.1 million. The head of the organization, Alberto David Benguiat Jimenez, was sanctioned by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control in 2025, along with the shell corporations Paez-Garcia operated.
"When you do the cartel's business, you become our business," said U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon. Mark Remily, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Diego Field Office, said money laundering is the lifeblood of the cartel business model, that Paez-Garcia helped funnel tens of millions of dollars in drug proceeds for the Sinaloa Cartel, and that the extradition, conviction and sentencing show the determination of U.S. law enforcement and its international partners to dismantle these networks.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Benjamin and Robert Miller and investigated by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The case number is 23-cr-00446-JLS; Paez-Garcia was charged with conspiracy to launder money, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The investigation is part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative established by Executive Order 14159, a whole-of-government partnership targeting criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling rings.
(Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of California)
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of California
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国司法部总部大楼。Gunnar Klack 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons，本图已裁为 16:9。 / Photo: Headquarters of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. By Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped to 16:9.
