NEW YORK—Senior U.S. law enforcement officials are alleging that drug traffickers prefer to launder money through Citigroup due to the belief that it has less robust fraud controls, according to a new report.
That finding is on statements from U.S. prosecutors, who recently detailed how two Californians allegedly working for the Sinaloa cartel deposited tens of thousands of dollars at Citi ATMS, according to the Financial Times.
The Times reported that on at least three occasions in January 2021, criminals allegedly fed almost $36,000 in elicit cash into various ATMs, a few hundred dollars at a time, and waited a minute or two between transactions, the Financial Times said.
By splitting the sum into dozens of smaller deposits, prosecutors claim, they stayed below the $10,000 threshold at which banks are required to report cash transactions to the US Treasury, the Financial Times reported.
‘Banks That Pay Less Attention’
Drug Enforcement Administration officials told the Financial Times that the duo, alleged to be part of a vast criminal network that cleaned at least $50 million in fentanyl and meth proceeds in the U.S., scoped out several banks before choosing Citi.
"There are banks that pay less attention than others," one senior official told the Financial Times.
‘More Favorable to Them’
A second senior DEA official was quoted as saying, "I will name one [bank]. There were two instances where in this investigation we had money couriers making 24 back-to-back deposits totaling $16,000 to a Citibank ATM . . . There were 15 back-to-back deposits totaling $20,000 also to a Citibank ATM . . . They figure out the places that are more favorable to them."