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Million-Dollar Money Launderers Caught: Li Pei Tan and Chaojie Chen Busted for Sinaloa Cartel Ties
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Two alleged members of a transnational money laundering organization have been caught in the act, accused of laundering millions of dollars in drug proceeds for the notorious Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.
Li Pei Tan, 46, of Buford, Georgia, and Chaojie Chen, 41, a foreign national residing in Chicago, were arrested on charges related to their alleged involvement in a scheme to launder millions of dollars in illegal drug proceeds.
According to court documents, Tan and Chen allegedly worked for a money laundering organization that laundered millions of dollars in proceeds related to the importation of illegal drugs into the United States, primarily through Mexico, and the unlawful distribution of these drugs.
Tan, Chen, and their co-conspirators allegedly traveled throughout the United States to collect proceeds derived from trafficking in fentanyl and other drugs, or to cause them to be collected. They allegedly communicated and coordinated with co-conspirators in China and other foreign countries to arrange for the laundering of these proceeds through financial transactions designed to conceal the illicit source of the drug proceeds.
The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels are at the heart of the fentanyl crisis in the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) National Drug Threat Assessment. Tan and Chen are charged in separate criminal complaints with conspiring to commit money laundering. If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The DEA’s Special Operations Division, Bilateral Investigations Unit is investigating the case, with assistance from the DEA’s Office of Special Intelligence, Document and Media Exploitation Unit and the DEA’s offices in Chicago, Atlanta, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
A criminal complaint is merely an accusation. The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation, which identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edgardo J. Rodriguez for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Mary K. Daly of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section are prosecuting the case, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Northern District of Georgia and Northern District of Illinois.
Key Facts
- State: Virginia
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Drug Trafficking|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Violent Crime|Organized Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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