A Horse Farm of a Different Color - Drug Cartels to Oklahoma Horse Farm

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

By outward appearances, the owner of an Oklahoma farm bought American quarter horses to train, breed, and race. But Jose Trevino Morales, the brother of two leaders of the violent and powerful Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas, was not just in the horse business: He was using the farm as a front to launder millions of dollars of the cartel’s illicit profits.


A three-year investigation led by the FBI resulted in convictions recently in federal court against Trevino and three others for conspiracy to commit money laundering. The case was significant because it revealed the reach and influence of Los Zetas in the U.S.—and it also illustrated how effective our investigators have become at targeting the cartel’s leaders.


“Core family members of the cartel and key business partners were impacted by this case,” said Special Agent David Villarreal, who supervised the investigation from our Laredo, Texas Resident Agency. “The FBI is targeting the highest echelons of the cartel’s leadership, and that sends a strong message not only to the cartel but to the people who are laundering their money on the American side of the border.”


The investigation, conducted through the Department of Justice-run Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) program, showed that since 2008, Trevino and his associates bought and sold racehorses with Los Zetas drug money using shell companies and front men. Testimony at trial revealed that during a 30-month period, the defendants spent $16 million in New Mexico, Oklahoma, California, and Texas on the horse farm operation.


U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman, who prosecuted the case, said after the trial, “The government was able to show how the corrupting influence of drug cartels has extended into the United States with cartel bosses using an otherwise legitimate domestic industry to launder proceeds from drug trafficking and other crimes.”


Investigators traced “upwards of $22 million that was laundered and shipped back to Mexico,” Villarreal said. “And that was just a piece of the operation that we used as a snapshot to prove our case in court.”

Source... FBI

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