A Buford man has been sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his involvement in a conspiracy to launder millions of dollars in drug proceeds on behalf of foreign drug trafficking organizations, including the Sinaloa cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (the Jalisco cartel). On Dec. 4, his co-conspirator was sentenced to 90 months in prison for his role in the money laundering scheme.
According to federal court documents, Li Pei Tan, 47, and Chaojie Chen, 41, a Chinese national who lived in Chicago, worked for an organization that laundered millions of dollars in proceeds related to the importation and distribution of illegal drugs into the U.S., primarily through Mexico.
Tan, Chen, and their co-conspirators traveled throughout the country to collect proceeds of fentanyl and cocaine trafficking, among other drugs. The defendants communicated and coordinated with co-conspirators in China and other foreign countries to arrange the laundering of these proceeds through financial transactions that were designed to conceal the illicit source of the drug money. This included through a trade-based money laundering scheme involving purchasing bulk electronics in the U.S. and shipping them to co-conspirators in China.
On several occasions prior to Chen’s May 2024 arrest, law enforcement seized hundreds of thousands of dollars in bulk cash drug proceeds from Chen at locations across the country. Tan was intercepted by law enforcement in South Carolina while attempting to transport over $197,000 in drug proceeds.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) National Drug Threat Assessment, the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are at the heart of the fentanyl crisis in the U.S.
