LA Textile Import-Export Company Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering
Pacific Eurotex, an "import-export textile business" in Los Angeles, and its two owners pleaded guilty to involvement in a money laundering scheme, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California said in a Dec. 22 news release. The company and owners Morad and Hersel Neman entered a guilty plea to "federal charges in an indictment that accused them of using the business to receive bulk cash that they knew or believed to be the proceeds of narcotics trafficking," the Justice Department said. "The defendants admitted in court documents that they failed to report to federal authorities the receipt of this bulk cash, and that they 'structured' frequent deposits of the cash, in amounts less than $10,000, to avoid a bank reporting requirement that would have drawn the scrutiny of law enforcement." The owners also used two sets of business records to conceal income for tax purposes, it said.
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The scheme was meant to help drug traffickers with U.S. currency to convert the money into a foreign currency, the DOJ said. In this case, Pacific Eurotex used "illegally obtained dollars" to pay for goods purchased by foreign customers, it said. "Once the goods are shipped to the foreign country and sold by the foreign business," the funds are sent to the "drug trafficker in the local currency of the foreign country, thus completing the laundering," the DOJ said. "Pacific Eurotex received, laundered and structured approximately $370,000 in bulk cash delivered on four separate occasions over 2 1/2 months in 2013 by an undercover agent posing as a money courier, according to court documents." Sentencing is scheduled for June 14, 2018. Two other defendants in the case will go on trial March 6, 2018.