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FBI Sting Nets 13 in Money Laundering Crackdown

LAW ENFORCEMENT

June 1993

A $22.5 million international sting by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) resulted in 13 arrests for money laundering in Connecticut (Ralph Blumenthal, "F.B.I. Arrests 13 In Money-Laundering Sting In Connecticut," New York Times, 5/26/93, B5).

The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and Customs Service set up a bogus money-laundering office near the Greenwich, Conn. railroad station. Between 1991 and 1992, they "laundered" $22.5 million for a number of American and Israeli businessmen. The money allegedly came from Colombian cocaine dealers. None of those arrested were directly involved in drug trafficking. As part of the sting, the FBI set up numbered accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere, on some days wiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to the accounts from alleged drug sales in the New York area.