Colombian prosecutors have seized assets valued at just $246 million (COP 1. 2 trillion) from an alleged cash laundering network connected to the foreign drug industry in the United States and Asia.
The cash laundering was allegedly carried out through “Holy Land Stores,” a giant company that allegedly used clothing imports and sales for trade-based cash laundering (TBML) since 2009.
According to prosecutors, foreign partners of the Holy Land organization falsified export invoices, a common way of laundering drug money through legal trade.
The cash laundering allegedly comes from export corporations in mainland China, Singapore, Panama, India and Hong Kong, as well as intermediaries in Panama and Ecuador, according to prosecutors.
The allegedly illicit imports allegedly entered Colombia through the container port terminals of Buenaventura on the Pacific coast and Barranquilla, where the headquarters of the Holy Land are located.
The imported clothing was then sold to the apparel company’s 29 branches and more than 30 franchises in Colombia.
Some of the 20 related corporations and 58 royal houses “existed on paper to facilitate multibillion-dollar money laundering operations,” according to police intelligence unit DIJIN.
An importer, which in 2014 with a capital of two hundred million pesos and generated that same year gross operating income of more than 7 billion pesos. In 2015 it had revenues of 1. 4 billion pesos and in 2016 it generated 2. 1 billion pesos. That is, in 3 years he managed to move the sum of 10. 9 billion pesos.
The DIJIN, the UIAF Money Crimes Unit and tax firm DIAN were involved in the five-year investigation that led to the prosecutor’s raids in September.
Juan Ibrahim Figali
The indictment did not mention drug trafficking, but anonymous tax officials told Critical Daily in November that the Holy Land organization had laundered drug money.
According to the news site, the money laundering organization is linked to Jean Ibrahim Figali, who has a “long history of money laundering in Panama and Colombia since the 1990s when he was a lieutenant of past drug lord Pablo Escobar” of Medellín. Cartel, the U. S. Embassy in Panama City said in a leaked cable.
In 1996, the newspaper El Tiempo recognized the alleged mafioso as one of the leaders of the “Cartel de la Costa,” which allegedly controlled smuggling operations in the Caribbean region.
Figali “is who in reality is the illicit money laundering operation,” which has co-opted components of the Caribbean economy and regional politicians, said one of the tax officials quoted by the Critical Daily.
The former sentencing dictator of José Alfredo Araujo told the newspaper El Tiempo in 2014 that Figali obtained a diplomatic passport from former Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who ruled the Central American country between 1999 and 2004.
U. S. court records. U. S. officials show the alleged money launderer lived in the U. S. U. S. circa 2011.
Attorney General Francisco Barbosa (Screenshot: YouTube)
According to De La Espriella Abogados, which represents alleged money launderers, it said in October that an indictment in Barranquilla had overturned the detention of 11 of the 20 alleged members of the money laundering network.
Attorney General Francisco Barbosa has not responded to accusations that he has failed to provide evidence that merits confinement in preparation for the trial of the alleged money launderers.
In fact, 3 months after its media release, the prosecution has still not officially classified a single suspect in the alleged plot in the Holy Land, who allegedly laundered drug money for more than thirteen years.
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