Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Georgia man has been sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for his role in a scheme to launder millions of dollars in illicit drug proceeds for Mexican cartels.

Judge Claude M. Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia handed down the sentence to Li Pei Tan, 47, of Buford, Georgia, on April 11, according to a court statement. Tan pleaded guilty in October 2024 after he was arrested several months earlier.

Tan’s coconspirator, Chaojie Chen, a 41-year-old Chinese national living in Chicago, was sentenced to more than 7.5 years in December 2024.

Tan and Chen worked on behalf of foreign drug trafficking organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación. The two, along with other coconspirators, traveled throughout the United States to collect money gained from trafficking fentanyl, cocaine, and other illicit drugs.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said in its 2024 threat assessment report that the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels “are at the heart” of the fentanyl crisis. The agency said the two cartels “rely on chemical companies and pill press companies in China” for precursor chemicals and equipment and “utilize Chinese Money Laundering Organizations to move their profits from the United States back to Mexico.”

According to a court document submitted days before the sentence was imposed, prosecutors said Tan and his coconspirators often received bulk cash amounts from drug trafficking organizations, and they transported the money across state lines so that the “funds could be transacted with and laundered several states removed from where the proceeds were generated.”

Tan and his coconspirators used encrypted messaging platforms for communication, such as the Chinese app WeChat, according to the court document.

They relied on bank accounts in both China and the United States for their scheme, the court document stated.

To further their money laundering conspiracy, Tan and his coconspirators also purchased bulk electronics in the United States and shipped them to coconspirators in China, according to the court document. In return, Tan received commissions for these shipments.

On March 3, 2024, nearly 12 weeks before being arrested, Tan was stopped by law enforcement officials during a traffic stop near Charlotte, North Carolina. He was found to have in his possession $197,700 in illicit drug proceeds.

Tan’s money laundering totaled more than $3.5 million, according to the court document.

Prosecutors explained in the court document that they had sought a sentence of more than 11 years for Chen, who admitted to laundering more than $14 million in illicit drug proceeds.

Considering Chen’s involvement in the scheme and that he received a 90-month sentence, prosecutors argued that the judge should sentence Tan to 108 months, or nine years, of imprisonment.

Prosecutors said that sentence “adequately reflects the seriousness of the defendant’s conduct,” and “will serve to deter the defendant and others from engaging in similar, potentially deadly criminal activity.”

“The defendant was a crucial member of an international money laundering conspiracy who enriched himself on the back of international drug trafficking, a ruinous and destructive trade that has brought untold suffering to communities throughout the United States and fueled instability and violence abroad,” the court document states.

Tan’s lawyer, Robert L. Jenkins Jr., said his client regretted his involvement in the scheme.

“Mr. Tan is a hard-working family man. He truly regrets becoming involved in this matter. He sincerely wishes to put it behind him and refocus his attention on his family,” Jenkins stated in an email to The Epoch Times on April 14.

In December 2024, a federal judge in Illinois sentenced Pan Haiping to 10 years behind bars for laundering $62 million in illegal narcotics proceeds on behalf of Mexican drug traffickers.

Pan, a Chinese national, collaborated with accomplices to launder as much as $3 million monthly in drug proceeds using “secretive money pickups” in several U.S. cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, followed by currency swaps between the U.S. dollar and Chinese yuan, and the Chinese yuan and the Mexican peso, according to prosecutors.