Lottery millionaire admits laundering money for drug dealers

Mar 17, 2004, 11:05 am (9 comments)

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A man who won $6.7 million in the lottery a decade ago was ordered to stay in his house for six months for laundering money for drug dealers.

That was the penalty imposed Tuesday on 73-year-old Carlos Rivera, who will be electronically monitored during that time. U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue also fined Rivera $30,000 and placed him on probation for three years after his home confinement is completed.

Rivera admitted concealing cash payments he received from convicted drug dealers Victor and Hector Delavega on a home they bought from him.

Prosecutors said Rivera was paid $29,000 in cash in March 2003 and made three deposits of $9,000 in separate bank accounts to hide the transaction from the government. Banks must report any deposit of $10,000 or more to the IRS.

The paperwork on the closing of the sale showed the Delavega brothers paid only $9,000 as a down payment.

Authorities said the Delavegas headed a cocaine-trafficking ring that operated in Onondaga and Cayuga counties. They pleaded guilty in December to federal drug and money-laundering charges and are awaiting sentencing.

Rivera, a retired custodian from Syracuse, won $6.7 million in the New York state lottery in 1994. He still gets annual payments of more than $300,000 and will receive them for another 10 years.

AP

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fja's avatarfja

i  guess 6.7 million isnt enough to some people,  They get a little more greedy every time

Todd's avatarTodd

See?  It proves Ca

Mana's avatarMana

Why do I have a feeling that J

four4me

Mana wrote: Why do I have a feeling that Jack Whittaker is gunna have something like that happen?

Never happen that country boy woln't go there. He allready has enough problems and will be on probation himself soon. Although you can look forward to somthing more serious like him getting shot at or shooting at somone. After getting beat up and robbed a few times he is probably going to shoot back.

LottoBuddy's avatarLottoBuddy

Can somebody explain how this "money laundering" works?  Did the drug dealers pay Rivera only $29,000 for his house?  How did he and the drug dealers profit?

MichiganHopeful's avatarMichiganHopeful

He deposited the money for them so that the IRS would not find out that it was drug money. The bank is required to report any deposit of $10,000 or more but since he only made three deposits of $9,000 each the IRS would not be notified about the deposits. Furthermore, being that he was a lottery winner, the bank would not be suspicious about the large amounts of money deposited by him.

Hope that helps! :)

fja's avatarfja

Best I can figure is that in multi million dollar cash business, drug dealers have the problem of trying to get their money to become legitimate cash without getting caught for dealing or tax evasion,,,if they deposit it in the bank the IRS gets called in to probe you,  if you start buying hundreds of thousands worth of material things in cash it also sends up a red flag.  In this case they tried to buy a house lets say for $100,000.. they pay the owner $30,000 in cash....the owner drops the price of the house to $70,000, the dealers put down $9,000 in down payment, and buy the house legitimately for $70,000....when they sell the house for $100,000 again they have cleaned that $30,000 they gave the owner...the previous owner now has the problem of hiding the cash from the IRS,,,,Thats why dealers set up phony corporations and run money through as if it were sales revenue...

for a better explanation you might want to watch the movie "Scarface"

Mana's avatarMana
Quote: Originally posted by MichiganHopeful on March 18, 2004



He deposited the money for them so that the IRS would not find out that it was drug money. The bank is required to report any deposit of $10,000 or more but since he only made three deposits of $9,000 each the IRS would not be notified about the deposits. Furthermore, being that he was a lottery winner, the bank would not be suspicious about the large amounts of money deposited by him.

Hope that helps! :)





Oohhhh....  I understand!

*Thanks for the Info!*

CASH Only

Todd:

NY's cash option didn't begin until 1996.

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