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Prosecutors have announced a guilty plea in a case that saw $1 million in drug money laundered through banks in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the United States.

Luis Fernando Galindo-Ramos, 55, admitted to three money laundering-related charges in federal court in Boston Monday, the U.S. attorney’s office for Massachusetts said. Galindo-Ramos had been indicted in 2021 and extradited to the U.S. from Colombia in June of this year.

His plea caps a federal investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service that began in August 2016 into a money laundering organization based in Cali, Colombia that prosecutors say used a black-market exchange for Colombian pesos to pas $1 million in proceeds from the sale of illegal drugs through bank accounts in the United States, including banks in Massachusetts, held in the names of various individuals and businesses in order to repay drug suppliers in Colombia.

Prosecutors didn’t specify the banks involved and didn’t say if any of the financial institutions involved would face regulatory action in the case.

Galindo-Ramos faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $550,000 for some of the charges he faces. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March 2024.

Guilty Plea in Drug Money Laundering that Hit Mass. Banks

by The Warren Group time to read: 1 min
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