Posted on May 9, 2008 by Anthony Lake

Black Market Peso Exchange Thriving Despite Economy

   According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia, 24 defendants have entered guilty pleas in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on money laundering conspiracy charges. The charges against the defendants allege that the defendants attempted to launder millions of dollars through the "black market peso exchange." The black market peso exchange is comprise of Colombian narcotics traffickers who need to convert U.S. currency earned from the drug trade into Colombian pesos, since U.S. currency is generally not accepted in Colombia.
    The defendants were apprehended through a sting operation by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement called "Operation Rainmaker." ICE agents, posing as money launderers, made 33 pickups of drug proceeds in Atlanta, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Puerto Rico, as well as ICE's first ever pickup in Mexico. $9,000,000 in proceeds, as well as quantities of narcotics, were seized as the result of the operation. The Atlanta defendants were arrested following two pickups by agents at a store parking lot in Gwinnett County.

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Posted on March 25, 2008 by Anthony Lake

Man Cons His Way Into Smuggling Organization, Sentenced to 17 Years

Kevin Felts lived a mundane life as a 60 year-old chemical engineer in Brazoria, Texas. That is, until he managed to convice Nora Aguilar, a former convict with ties to drug smuggling organizations, that he was a fighter pilot returned from Iraq. Aguilar, impressed, bought Felts a small plane and Felts began flying millions of dollars worth of cash for a drug cartel from various points in the United States to the Mexican border. Felts’ exciting new career as a drug smuggler ended, however, in March 2005, at Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport in Gainesville, Georgia, where Felts was apprehended carrying suitcases containing $1.3 million. He was sentenced last Thursday to 17 years imprisonment by Judge William C. O’Kelley of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

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Posted on March 19, 2008 by Anthony Lake

State Representative Resigns and Pleads Guilty to Drug Money Laundering

Georgia State Representative Walter Ronnie Sailor, Jr., who represents District 93, which incorporates parts of DeKalb and Rockdale Counties, pled guilty on Tuesday to a federal money laundering sting count, and further resigned from the General Assembly. Sailor is alleged to have approached an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agent posing as a drug dealer at an Atlanta hotel in November 2007, allegedly offering to launder drug proceeds for a fee. The agent allegedly met Sailor several times to provide him with sums of money represented to be drug proceeds, and Sailor would allegedly meet with the agent to provide the agent with checks for the proceeds. Sailor was arrested last December, and immediately began cooperating with the government. He will be sentenced in May.

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Posted on March 10, 2008 by Anthony Lake

Atlanta Vice?: Atlanta Area a Global Center for Drug Distribution

Jack Killorin, the Director of the Atlanta High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force (HIDTA), announced to the press that drug enforcement efforts have resulted in a rise in drug prices and decrease in drug quality in the metro Atlanta area. Killorin cited the HIDTA’s and Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) shutting down of two drug trafficking operations in December and seizure of millions of dollars worth of drugs and $10 million in cash. Killorin further noted the DEA’s large seizures of methamphetamine in Gwinnett County over the last three years, including a record-setting $50 million worth of crystal meth seized in Buford, Georgia, in 2006.

Killorin also described to Atlanta as “Atlanta Vice,” in reference to the popular 1980s television show “Miami Vice,” minus the palm trees, bikinis, speed boats and white sports jackets. According to federal authorities, Atlanta has become a global center for drug distribution, receiving a range of drugs, including powder and crack cocaine, crystal meth and ecstasy, mostly from Mexican drug cartels, and distributing them to cities in the East and Midwest. Moreover, the drug trade has moved into the affluent suburbs, with drug traffickers renting houses on large, private lots to shield them from surveillance. Killorin also stated, on the positive side, that Georgia’s 2005 law restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, a necessary ingredient for methamphetamine production, has reduced the number of meth labs which used to riddle north Georgia, although meth produced in Mexico has filled the vacuum.

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