Date: Nov. 22, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Jacksonville, FL — United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces the return of an indictment charging Mauricio Chahine (Jacksonville) with five counts of money laundering and attempted money laundering. If convicted, Chahine faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison on each count. Chahine was arrested on a criminal complaint on Nov. 12, 2024, and has been ordered detained while awaiting trial. According to the indictment and other court documents, beginning in March 2024, Chahine met several times with undercover federal agents who were posing as drug traffickers. Chahine explained to the undercover agents the various ways that he could launder money for a fee on their behalf. On four separate occasions, Chahine accepted cash from the agents, totaling more than $200,000. Chahine then caused the cash to be divided up and deposited into the bank accounts of various corporate entities, only to return the money to the agents – less his fee – through a series of wire transfers to a bank account controlled by the agents. The purpose of these transactions was to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, and control of the cash, which Chahine believed to be drug trafficking proceeds. The indictment also alleges that Chahine attempted to engage in money laundering on a fifth occasion shortly before his arrest. An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty. This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration. It will be prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Kelly S. Milliron and Michael J. Coolican. This case was part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multiagency approach. IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
