Matthew Cox

Because that way, when the piece of equipment arrives...

Yes.

And so you take all of those instances, add them together, it becomes a very interesting package for legitimate businessmen.

And they're not going to... You know, the brokers aren't going around telling people, hey, we got drug money in LA.

They're just saying, hey, we've got dollars in the United States that we're looking to sell.

And so this created this enormous industry where...

One of the reasons why Los Angeles became the money laundering capital of the US was because all the money would have to come to LA.

The guy that oversaw the operation at the time was an older gentleman.

You guys knew him as the name Viejo.

And he had a network of essentially Mexican-American businessmen whose job it was to simply surface capital.

in the form of either heavy equipment, electronics, consumer goods.

And that's the baseline that was created back then.

The involvement of the Chinese money laundering rings handling drug proceeds from Mexico is nothing new.

From its beginning in 1990, the Sinaloa cartel focused on the importation and distribution of primarily

The three principal factions of the cartel, led by Ismael Zambada, Joaquin Guzman, and Guero Palma, utilized the LA area as their principal American base of operation.

A fourth kingpin, named Armando Valencia, operated out of the LA area.

His organization was the one that was based in Orange County.

Unlike the other organizations which focused on...

Valencia's organization was also involved in the manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine.

Valencia had operatives in Orange County who supplied the raw materials to traffickers in the L.A.