Colombian crypto broker gets 160 months in US drug-money laundering case

what happened

A federal court in New York has sentenced Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque, whom prosecutors describe as a Colombia-based crypto broker with a supervisory role in the network. Besides the prison term, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ordered five years of supervised release and forfeiture of $14,751,846. The details come from newsbtc.com, which cites a statement from federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

According to the case, between May and November 2023 the group laundered roughly $14.5 million in Tether tied to drug trafficking. Proceeds were turned into the stablecoin, passed to an unlicensed money transmitter and swapped for dollars. US shell companies then sent the funds to Colombian firms, where they were converted into pesos and paid out to recipients.

Prosecutors stress that the token transfer was only one link in a chain that also relied on corporate structures, currency conversion and banking access. The laundering total and the forfeiture amount measure different things and should not be added together.

why it matters

For markets, the case is a reminder of how stablecoins can end up under the scrutiny of regulators and law enforcement. Tracing funds on a blockchain alone is not enough, so investigations increasingly combine it with banking records. The story is legal in nature and contains no price data.

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