A New York federal judge sentenced Colombian crypto broker Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque to 160 months in prison in a money-laundering and narcotics case, prosecutors announced October 21. The judge also imposed five years of supervised release and ordered him to forfeit $14,751,846.
Prosecutors said Zuluaga Duque had a supervisory role in a network that laundered approximately $14.5 million in Tether derived from drug trafficking between May and November 2023. They said the proceeds passed through an unlicensed money-transmission business and US shell companies before reaching recipients in Colombian pesos. The forfeiture order is separate from the approximately $14.5 million laundering figure; adding them would overstate the proceeds described in the case.
