Latin American Drug Cartels Laundering Billions of Dollars Through Chinese Banks Niall Fraser - South China Morning Post
go to original September 11, 2015

According to US prosecutors, billions in drug proceeds went via Hong Kong bank accounts to casinos, Chinese currency exchange houses, export companies and factories. (Bloomberg)

Banks in Hong Kong and the mainland are being used to launder the multi-billion-dollar fortune reaped by Latin America's notorious drug cartels, according to the United States authorities.

Documents just unsealed in a US court reveal that three Colombian nationals have been charged with helping to run a global money laundering network based in Guangzhou, in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

This brought in at least US$5 billion in Colombian drug proceeds routed from the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Guatemala and Canada, as well as parts of Africa and Europe.

The banks involved were not identified in the indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

The charges come just months after the South China Morning Post revealed that a powerful new drug cartel that was behind a surge in violence engulfing parts of Mexico was targeting Hong Kong's lucrative cocaine market, according to a top official at the Mexican National Chamber of Industry.

The Jalisco New Generation was reaping huge profits selling cocaine at a considerable mark-up in Hong Kong, according to chamber president Rodrigo Alpízar Vallejo.

His comments come amid an increased push by Latin American drug cartels into the Asia-Pacific region in recent years.

Read the rest at South China Morning Post

Related: How Mexican Drug Cartels Have Infiltrated Hong Kong (South China Morning Post)

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