Date: June 20, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Syracuse, NY – Michael Gonzalski was sentenced Tuesday to serve 54 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute cocaine, possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute, and money laundering, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Frank A. Tarentino III, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), New York Division. As part of his earlier guilty plea, Gonzalski admitted that from approximately August 2020, until March 30, 2022, he distributed cocaine to customers in Onondaga County, NY. The court determined as part of Gonzalski’s sentencing that he distributed approximately 10 kilograms of powder cocaine. Gonzalski also admitted committing money laundering by attempting to conceal the source of some of his drug proceeds through an automobile transaction. United States District Judge David N. Hurd further sentenced Gonzalski to a three-year term of supervised release to begin after Gonzalski serves his terms of imprisonment, and imposed a $333,111 money judgment, which reflected the proceeds Gonzalski obtained through drug dealing. This case was investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the Syracuse Police Department (SPD), the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO), the New York State Police (NYSP), the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Sutcliffe. 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. 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.
