Date: Dec. 13, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Sacramento, CA — Tracy Arnett of Los Angeles, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit money laundering, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced. According to court documents, from August 2023 through March 2024, Arnett and three co-conspirators conducted multiple financial transactions involving funds they believed to be proceeds of cocaine trafficking. Their belief as to the nature of the funds was based on representations of an individual working at the direction of law enforcement. In total, the co-conspirators received approximately $940,000 in purported drug trafficking proceeds. Of that amount, the co-conspirators laundered approximately $811,000. This case is the product of an investigation by the IRS Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Thuesen and Whitnee Goins are prosecuting the case. A sentencing date for Arnett has not been set. Arnett is scheduled for a status conference regarding sentencing before U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins on June 13, 2025. Arnett faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the court’s discretion after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables. 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.
