A San Diego-based attorney was sentenced Tuesday to five years in federal prison for masterminding and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Richard Medina Jr., 40, pleaded guilty a year ago to funneling nearly $12 million through his law firm’s client accounts.
According to court documents, Medina and three co-defendants conspired to operate as a commercial enterprise, willing and able to transfer cash on behalf of third parties. The co-defendants did not register their money transmitting business with the Secretary of the Treasury, as required by law, prosecutors said.
The defendants’ customers — based throughout the United States and the world — availed themselves of the ability of Medina, Omar Trevino Caro Del Castillo, Francisco Cuevas and one other co-defendant to collect cash and transmit it anywhere in the world.
The co-defendants obtained commissions for their services, extracting a fee from the millions of dollars transmitted, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In an effort to legitimize the transmission of the currency, Medina opened several Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts in the name of his law firm at national banks, prosecutors said.
Medina supervised the people picking up cash in cities throughout the United States — even allowing them to use his law firm’s credit card — then deposited the cash into the IOLTA accounts.
Depositing the money into the IOLTA accounts prevented financial institutions from filing accurate Currency Transaction Reports. Banks must file reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for all currency transactions exceeding $10,000 during one banking day.
No less than $11.9 million in cash made its way into, through and out of the IOLTA Accounts over the course of 47 deposits between March 2013 and February 2014, according to the government.
The ultimate source of the cash was never fully determined because the Currency Transaction Reports filed by the banks only contained the name of Medina’s law firm; not the names of the third-parties that transferred the cash to the traveling depositors.
Medina admitted supervising the international transfer of the funds with the knowledge or having reason to know that the transactions involved proceeds of unlawful activity, according to prosecutors.
Cuevas, 39, pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and was sentenced in February to 51 months in prison.
Omar Trevino Caro Del Castillo, also 39, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was sentenced to 27 months in prison.
–City News Service
