Li Pei Tan, 46, of Buford, Georgia, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to launder tens of millions of dollars in narcotics earnings for transnational trafficking groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Justice Department (DOJ) reported.
In a separate case, on August 5, Chaojie Chen, 41, a Chinese national living in Chicago, admitted to laundering millions of dollars from illegal narcotics imports for distribution across the United States, according to the DOJ.
Tan and Chen pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and agreed to surrender assets such as a home, pistol, body armor, and more than $270,000 in cash.
Tan and Chen accepted money judgments totaling more than $23 million, according to the DOJ.
Tan, Chen, and their co-conspirators allegedly went around the country collecting earnings from the distribution of fentanyl, cocaine, and other narcotics, according to the police.
The DOJ alleged that they worked with accomplices in China and other countries, utilizing intricate financial transactions to obscure the monies’ origins.
According to the department, court documents detail a trade-based laundering operation in which co-conspirators received large electronics acquired in the United States and transferred overseas.
Police confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug-related currency from Chen in various U.S. locales prior to his arrest in May, while the DOJ apprehended Tan in South Carolina with more than $197,000 in suspected drug earnings.
Tan will receive his sentence on February 7, 2025, and Chen on November 14. The DOJ reported that each defendant faces up to 20 years in prison.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) National Drug Threat Assessment, “the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are at the heart of the fentanyl crisis” in the US.