Date: Dec. 5, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov BOSTON — A Lebanese man was sentenced yesterday for his for his participation in a money laundering conspiracy. Andres Rached Farah a Lebanese citizen who resided in Colombia, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns to 52 months in prison. In August 2024, Farah pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and conducting substantive money laundering transactions. Farah was charged in a 50-count indictment along with 19 other individuals in March 2022. Farah was arrested in Colombia in April 2022 and extradited to the United States in September 2023. Beginning in 2016 and continuing until 2022, law enforcement conducted an investigation into a money laundering organization based primarily in Barranquilla, Colombia. An undercover agent infiltrated the organization by portraying himself as an international money launderer able to pick up bulk cash throughout the world, launder the proceeds through his United States-based accounts and send the money to Colombia. Specifically, the money would be sent either through the Black Market Peso Exchange – a common method of trade-based money laundering used to repatriate the proceeds of drug trafficking to Colombia – or through business accounts that could layer the proceeds in other transactions to conceal the original illegal source. Throughout the course of the investigation, members of the money laundering organization would allegedly contact the undercover and arrange meetings for the undercover and the undercover’s purported associates to collect bulk cash throughout the world. Members of the money laundering organization allegedly directed where the money was to be sent, and facilitators, such as Farah, would facilitate the payout of the laundered proceeds in Colombia for the benefit of the drug suppliers. Over the course of the conspiracy, Farah was responsible for the laundering of at least $591,000 in drug proceeds. Farah is the ninth defendant to be sentenced in the case. Four other defendants have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Two additional defendants have filed notice of their intent to plead guilty. The case is pending as to the remaining defendants. United States Attorney Joshua R. Levy; Jonathan Wlodyka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) in Boston; and Stephen Belleau, Acting Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, New England Field Division made the announcement today. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section’s Office of the Judicial Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota provided critical assistance in securing the arrest and extradition of Farah. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jared C. Dolan and Alathea E. Porter of the Criminal Division are prosecuting the case. This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. The details contained in the charging document are allegations. The remaining defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. 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.
