Sinaloa Cartel Money Laundering in Los Angeles Part 3: Luxury Cars, Nightclubs, Restaurants & El Mago
“Socalj” for Borderland Beat
Part 3 of a Series Looking into Money Laundering Operations Out of Southern California tied to the Sinaloa Cartel. Read Part 1, Part 2
Part 3 Business Fronts & Investments
Part 3 of the ‘Sinaloa Cartel Money Laundering in Los Angeles’ series dives into several Sinaloa connected traffickers and their involvement in legitimate businesses such as nightclubs and restaurants, including those operated around the nexus of “El Mago” and connected friends.
El Rodeo Nightclub
In 2012, Edgar Fragoso, owner of El Rodeo Nightclub in Pico Rivera, California, allegedly told a DEA informant that the night club was used for money laundering for Mexican-based but California born trafficker Ramón González also known as”Don Ramon.”
The DEA then placed Fragoso under surveillance, and recorded all of his cell phone conversations and text messages. The BlackBerry phone that Fragoso used for sending messages was registered to Javier Pineda, an immigration attorney based in Santa Ana, California.
The investigation into the Pico Rivera club was initially triggered by the 2012 arrests of two people who were trafficking methamphetamine in Texas. That investigation lead back to two businesses registered to Fragoso’s mother and sister.
The undercovers eventually made multiple payments to Fragoso at El Rodeo including 3 payments for purchases of methamphetamine originating from the Mexican drug dealer and 2 payments for a fictitious drug trafficking organization introduced to Fragoso by the informants.
Fragoso explained that if the money was laundered this way, everyone would be clean; he would be clean and the money would come back clean. Fragoso then said he would be able to launder quantities of around $50,000 and return the money within a few days; larger amounts would take longer to return.
The feds raided the night club Febuary, 2015, seizing the property and arresting Fragoso. In addition to money laundering conspiracy, Fragoso was charged with seven counts of money laundering for allegedly issuing more than $200,000 in checks to a fictitious drug trafficking organization. The bogus drug operation was set up by the DEA and IRS in an undercover operation. Fragoso pleaded guilty in 2015 to laundering cartel money for “Don Ramon” and the fictitious undercover drug organization.
“Gonzalez directs others to deposit money (drug proceeds) into his wife’s bank account that she in turn spends on any number of things, such as paying the mortgage on their Hacienda Heights home and purchasing vehicles,” court records said. Members of the drug conspiracy, including some in North Texas, deposited his illegal drug proceeds into various accounts she set up in the U.S. since 2009, federal authorities said. It had totaled about $10,000 per month in cash, authorities said.
Ramón’s wife, Bambi Adams, was arrested in February 2015 at her Hacienda Heights house. Court documents showed that Adams was receiving around $10,000 month in cash from her husband who was a fugitive living in Mexico. All the while she was taking care of her 5 kids and was active in her school PTA.
Prosecutors said Bambi Adams knew about the source of the money, which was her only source of income, and traveled to Mexico 13 times during the prior two years to visit her husband. She pleaded guilty to the money laundering conspiracy charge and was sentenced to 9 years in a federal prison and released in 2021.
Another shooting took place at the nighclub in 2013. A valet was killed and a security guard wounded. |
Violence Connected to El Rodeo
The nightclub was also connected to the infamous 2008 shooting death of Jose “Huerito” Macias in his silver Bentley, following a serious of altercations stemming from a fight at the Pico Rivera nightclub.
Medrano told Cabral that he and Jose Macias got into a fight during the festival, which was broken up by security guards. Around 2:30AM, Cabral and the Morenos walked back to Cabral’s car. A passing Bentley caught Cabral’s and the Morenos’ attention.
The shooting seeminhly stemmed from a serious of altercations amongst the rival groups but police suspected that Eddie Escobedo had ordered or at least ok’d the killing. According to a search warrant affidavit, detectives believed he and Macias were engaged in “a power struggle” over control of trafficking networks in the Los Angeles area.
“Our understanding is that individual was a rival drug trafficker driving in that Bentley,” he said. The luxury car came from Dream Motor Cars on La Cienega but was not registered to Jose Macias at the time of his death.
“El Mago” Ivan’s Guy in LA
Eduardo “Eddie” Escobedo-Silva, a 39 year-old convicted marijuana distributor for Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, was shot to death in South Los Angeles, on Thanksgiving morning in November 2023.
Eddie Escobedo, who also went by Emilio according to his 2014 indictment, was nicknamed “El Mago,” or “The Magician.” He was born and raised in East Los Angeles and rose to become the primary distributor of marijuana in Los Angeles for Guzman’s oldest son, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, the prosecutor said at a 2014 detention hearing.
An example of a 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago. |
Mago’s Mercialago
Covered in depth in Part 2 of this Series is the method of moving drug proceeds employed by the Sinaloa Cartel and other organizations called the ‘Black Market Peso Exchange’ also termed ‘Trade Based Money Laundering.’ This is a system of value transfer (including goods and services) as opposed to the transfer of actual currency.
The vehicle was purchased by a third party using a dealer’s license belonging to the company Remate. Aside from being a way to layer and hide not only the source of the purchasing funds but the true owner of a car; dealer-to-dealer sales are often used to exempt the purchase from sales tax, saving thousands on the overall cost of the car. The LNB salesman testified that he was aware of this type of arrangement, where people would borrow an associate’s dealer paperwork in order to purchase luxury cars for personal use while avoiding sales taxes.
Exotic Cars Seized in Mexico
Hair Extensions & Music Labels
A father of 4, Escobedo claimed his annual income of about $200,000 came from a business he owned with his wife, International Hair Authority, that imported hair extensions and sold them. Escobedo also reportedly owned a record label, Magic Records Corporation.
Braverman said agents suspected Escobedo was using the hair company’s accounts to launder drug money, pointing to a $50,000 wire transfer from a man named Harvinder Singh. Scotland Yard arrested Singh and his associates, who were shipping cocaine from Mexico to London on British Airways flights.
After pleading guilty to conspiring to distribute marijuana and launder money, Escobedo was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison. He served 4 years and 9 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute more than 10,000 kilograms of marijuana and laundering drug proceeds. He was released in 2018.
His attorney, Ezekiel Cortez, urged the judge to see the good Escobedo had done after leaving prison. “As a society, you recognize that they listened. You recognize people who turned their lives around,” Cortez said at a hearing. “You recognize people who cut their ties, as in this case, with former very bad associations.”
Several of the food trucks and even a brick and mortar location in Los Angeles were operating while “El Mago” continued to flaunt his wealthy lifestyle on social media with posts including high end luxury cars, bags of cash and even singing along at parties or privados.
A week prior to his death, Mago alongside narco corrido singer Larry Hernandez and the owner of Culichi Town restaurants headed to Las Vegas for F1 race’s debut on the Las Vegas Strip. Track tickets were upwards of $2,000 with some strip facing hotel suites going for over $20,000 per night during the race.
Part 2 Trade Based Money Laundering
Source: https://www.borderlandbeat.com/2024/07/sinaloa-cartel-money-laundering-in-los_24.html
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