Julie Shemitz

I think he would describe himself as a boss, and they give out the orders and tell people what to do.

Go here, pick up this, bring it here, whatever.

the whole system works because this one person is controlling, you know, pulling the strings.

In other words, that narcotics money is used to buy those goods.

And the goods are shipped to Mexico where they're sold for pesos and the pesos are turned back to the cartel.

Oh, you name it.

I mean, luxury items in some cases, but also just jeans, garments of various kinds, electronics, whatever goods they could sell on the market in Mexico.

WeChat is based in China, and they do not cooperate with U.S.

law enforcement.

So unlike some other platforms, there is no way to get information about subscribers or traffic on WeChat or certainly the content of any WeChat messages.

You cannot.

The idea in following the couriers was to identify where they were getting this money.

And if we could prove that they were getting it from people who were trafficking in narcotics, then we had our proof that the dollars that were involved in these transactions were in fact drug trafficking proceeds.

Typically, in these kinds of cases, we put an alert at Homeland Security so that if it appears that one of our targets might be leaving the country or coming back into the country, that we'll know about it.

And when they hit the border coming from Mexico back into the United States,

As happens at the border with every car that crosses, a picture was taken.

That picture was forwarded to the agents who had listed their names for an alert.

And we got the photograph.

Everybody was completely blown away because it was proof that at least the money laundering arm of the drug trafficking organization was in close contact with the Chinese underground banking network that we were investigating.

A little bit.