Prosecutors have filed charges against four individuals, including Maximilien de Hoop Cartier, who claims to be a direct descendant of the Cartier family known for their luxury watches and jewelry. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has accused Cartier, along with Leonardo De Jesus Zuluaga Duque, Erica Milena Lopez Ortiz, and Felipe Estrada Echeverry, of participating in a money laundering conspiracy.
The indictment states that the four defendants are part of a network that has allegedly laundered millions of dollars worth of the stablecoin Tether (USDT), with the funds believed to have originated from drug trafficking. The network reportedly uses money laundering brokers and shell companies in the U.S., Colombia, and other locations to facilitate the movement of illicit proceeds from the U.S. to Colombia. Between May and November 2023, it is alleged that Cartier, Zuluaga Duque, Lopez Ortiz, Estrada Echeverry, and others in the network laundered approximately $14.5 million in Tether obtained from drug trafficking.
The indictment also reveals that Cartier operated an over-the-counter (OTC) crypto exchange and controlled several U.S.-based shell companies that maintained bank accounts with various U.S. financial institutions. Cartier allegedly misled these banks by falsely representing the nature of the Cartier Shell Companies’ business, claiming they were involved in software or technology. However, the companies were actually being used to operate an unlicensed money remitting business related to the cryptocurrency exchange.
Between January 2020 and the present, Cartier’s unlicensed money-transmitting business is said to have facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful transactions and laundered significant amounts of criminal proceeds, including those from drug trafficking, in collaboration with Zuluaga Duque, Lopez Ortiz, and Estrada Echeverry.
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