BOSTON — A Brazilian national has been nailed for his role in a brazen scheme to launder $20 million stolen from the wreckage of the TelexFree pyramid fraud. Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha, 28, was sentenced today in federal court to 33 months in prison and one year of supervised release after pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to commit money laundering and one count of money laundering.
The scheme unraveled in April 2014 when federal agents raided the Marlborough, Mass.-based headquarters of TelexFree Inc., a global operation that bilked nearly two million victims out of billions of dollars. That same day, co-founder Carlos Wanzeler fled — first to Canada, then to Brazil — leaving behind millions in hidden U.S. cash. The money, stashed across the greater Boston area, became the target of a transnational laundering operation involving couriers, intermediaries, and offshore maneuvers.
In mid-2015, an associate working for Wanzeler reached out to a middleman to move the illicit funds to Brazil. The plan: funnel the cash through Hong Kong, convert it to Brazilian Reals, and deposit it into shielded accounts. By January 2017, Rocha, acting as a courier for Wanzeler’s representative, flew from Brazil to New York City. He then met with a cooperating witness in Hudson, Mass., handing over a suitcase stuffed with $2.2 million in dirty bills — all proceeds from the TelexFree scam.
What Rocha didn’t know was that the man he trusted was wired to federal agents. After the handoff, surveillance teams tailed Rocha to an apartment in Westborough, Mass. A search of the unit revealed the staggering scale of the stash — approximately $20 million in cash, concealed inside a mattress box spring. The haul marked one of the largest domestic currency seizures tied to international fraud in recent years.
TelexFree co-founders Carlos Wanzeler and James Merrill were indicted in July 2014 on charges of orchestrating the massive Ponzi operation. Merrill copped a plea and was sentenced in March 2017 to six years in prison. Wanzeler, however, remains a fugitive, evading justice from abroad while his associates pay the price on U.S. soil.
“This was not victimless crime — it was theft on a global scale,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling, who announced the sentence alongside Michael Shea, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston. Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil J. Gallagher Jr. of the Economic Crimes Unit prosecuted the case, underscoring the federal crackdown on financial predators exploiting the international system for profit.
RELATED: Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha Arrested in $20M TelexFree Cash Seizure
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Key Facts
- State: Massachusetts
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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