Note: Relevant court documents can be found here. Today, the Department of Justice, through the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team, joined Europol to announce the results of Operation TorNado: a coordinated, multi‑agency and international law enforcement effort targeting criminal enterprises that use Dark Web markets to traffic...

MIAMI – The leader of Frente 33, part of the FARC dissident group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), a designated foreign terrorist organization, was extradited from Colombia to the Southern District of Florida on Thursday to face federal charges stemming from an alleged international cocaine trafficking...

Note: A copy of the 2021 indictment can be found here and a copy of the 2019 indictment can be found here. A Colombian national charged in two separate federal indictments involving the alleged laundering of more than $2 billion in connection with Venezuelan government bribery schemes will make his...

Gerardo Aquino, 40, of Hollywood, Florida, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes and laundering more than $4.8 million to Colombia while employed by TD Bank. “The Criminal Division is at the vanguard of protecting the security of the U.S. financial system, including against bank insiders,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen...

Pensacola, Florida – Jovon “Playa Pat” Booker, 33, of Pensacola, Florida, was convicted by a jury in federal court on one count of discharging a handgun in relation to a drug trafficking crime, and a separate count of possessing firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Prior to the...

MIAMI – A California duo accused of operating a darknet drug trafficking business that sold fentanyl and methamphetamine nationwide, including in South Florida, and laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency has been indicted by a Southern District of Florida grand jury. According to court documents, Nicholas Aguilar, 44...

Washington, D.C. - A Honduras-based Chinese national extradited from Guatemala pleaded guilty today to conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, conspiring to launder money derived from drug trafficking, and to providing material support to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, specifically the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). According...

WASHINGTON — Venezuela’s former Minister of Industry and National Production made his initial appearance today pursuant to an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of Florida charging him for his alleged role in a sprawling international money laundering conspiracy involving the corruption and exploitation of a Venezuelan public welfare program...

ATLANTA - Owe Martin Andresen, the suspected main administrator of Dream Market, one of the largest illicit darknet marketplaces before its 2019 shutdown, has been indicted for an alleged scheme to launder funds from Dream Market’s administrator accounts. Andresen was arrested last week in Germany on parallel charges brought by...

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice announced charges against more than 25 individuals as part of a nationwide crackdown targeting the foreign terrorist organization (FTO), Tren de Aragua (TdA). Many of the defendants charged in this Homeland Security Task Force operation are illegal aliens from Venezuela, Colombia, and Honduras. TdA...