Crypto Broker Gets 160 Months In US Drug-Money Laundering Case

TL;DR: A Colombian crypto broker received a 160-month prison sentence in a US laundering and narcotics case, prosecutors announced October 21. The account describes a scheme moving criminal proceeds through Tether and US shell companies.

A New York federal judge has sentenced Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque to 160 months in prison in a case involving cryptocurrency, drug proceeds and transfers through the US banking system.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the sentence on Wednesday. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil also imposed five years of supervised release and ordered forfeiture of $14,751,846, according to prosecutors.

The office described Zuluaga Duque as a Colombia-based crypto broker with a supervisory role in the network. It said he and others helped launder approximately $14.5 million in Tether derived from drug trafficking between May and November 2023.

Prosecutors’ account describes proceeds converted into Tether, passed to an unlicensed money-transmission business and exchanged for US dollars. US shell companies then transferred funds to Colombian companies before the money was converted into pesos and distributed.

The token transfer was one link in a chain that also depended on companies, currency conversion and banking access. The proceeds ultimately reached recipients in local currency, prosecutors said.

Monitoring a blockchain address alone would not necessarily explain the commercial purpose of an associated bank transfer. Conversely, a bank record might show the receiving company without revealing the earlier token movement. Reconstructing the entire route requires connecting those pieces.

The approximately $14.5 million laundering figure describes the Tether transactions attributed to the group. The separate forfeiture order sets the amount Zuluaga Duque must surrender under the sentence; adding those figures would overstate the proceeds described in the case.

The prison term exceeds 13 years. Afterward, Zuluaga Duque faces the additional five-year period of supervised release announced by prosecutors.

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This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.