According to the suspicion, the defendants operated a money laundering scheme that resulted from drug trade profits and from stolen/fraudulently obtained Gift Cards. The money laundering system was based on two main axes.
in the first vintage, the profits of the drug trade were transferred in cash and through electronic transfers, usually in amounts higher than 30 thousand dollars, and were put into the circulation of cash-intensive businesses owned by the defendants, including a restaurant and an electronics store. Thus, in one of the cases, about 250 thousand dollars were caught that were transferred in the car of one of the partners, hidden under a supply of meat to the restaurant.
The defendants then moved the funds through another tiering stage. According to the suspicion, the defendants operated an illegal money exchange through their family members. They received drug proceeds in cash in Boston and New York and transferred an equivalent amount (after deducting a commission they kept for themselves) in Chinese yuan currency to the bank accounts of the drug dealers, after exchanging the dollars they received for yuan currency at a discounted rate, through various people in the US. Through unregistered transactions ( These “off-the-books”), the defendants were able to evade reporting requirements in the United States, reporting restrictions at border crossings in China, and conceal the nature and source of the illegal funds transferred.
in the second axis, the defendants used stolen/fraudulently obtained vouchers and gift cards to purchase electronics. From here, the defendants established an infrastructure for trade-based money laundering (TBML), sending the electronic products to many places in the world, in exchange for bank transfers in the amounts of tens of millions of dollars.
Continue reading on the website of the US Department of Justice (DOJ)