Man Who Laundered Millions In Mexican Cartel Proceeds From Small SE Portland Store Gets 11 Years In Prison

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Operating out of a nondescript store off Southeast Portland’s busy Powell Boulevard, Jesus González Vazquez and another brother laundered millions of dollars in drug proceeds for Mexican drug cartel bosses between 2015 and 2019.

On Wednesday, González Vazquez, 37, was sent to prison for 11 years for his crimes in what prosecutors describe as one of the largest takedowns of a drug trafficking operation in Oregon history.

“If I were before the court and this was a mafia case ... I would say that this defendant before you was a made man,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Cardani told a judge.

“He was one that was the blood brother of the organization who was willing to do anything to help the objectives of the organization,” Cardani said.

Federal investigators, working with local police, set up covert pole cameras outside Tienda Mexicana González Bros. and intercepted phone calls through wiretaps starting in 2019.

They determined that González Vazquez was the main money launderer for two large drug traffickers working in four states in Mexico.

The store bearing his name sent at least $6.4 million of illegal drug proceeds to Mexico through wire transfers from November 2018 to early October 2019, the prosecutor and González Vazquez’s defense lawyer agreed in a negotiated plea deal.

But prosecutors believe he funneled much more over time: up to $19 million since 2015, according to government estimates.

“This defendant before you is the most significant defendant, whose actions were responsible for the success of the drug trafficking organization, certainly during the wiretap period but probably even before,” Cardani said. “He was the one that talked directly to the leaders in Mexico.’'

González Vazquez, of Jalisco, Mexico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Gresham police initiated the investigation that led to the federal indictment of 42 people in October 2019 for their alleged roles in the international drug smuggling and money laundering conspiracy. Thirty-four of the 35 people who have been arrested in the case have entered guilty pleas.

Investigators identified the drug bosses in Mexico as Samuel Diaz and Faustino Monroy and said they organized and ran the operation, trafficking hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine and heroin into Oregon for sale.

At its peak, its Portland distribution cell sold up to 77 pounds of methamphetamine and 55 pounds of heroin weekly in and around the city, according to prosecutors.

“This sentence is a successful step towards removing the ability of the cartels to collect their profits from the poison they inject into our communities,” Robert Hammer, the Homeland Security Investigations agent in charge of Pacific Northwest operations, said in a statement.

While drug trafficking organizations can quickly replace the low-level couriers and dealers, “it’s much harder for these organizations to quickly replace savvy, large volume money launderers” like González Vazquez, said Scott Asphaug, Oregon’s acting U.S. attorney.

‘HARM TO SOCIETY’

Prosecutors and investigators said drug dealers would sell methamphetamine and heroin throughout Portland and typically collect between $10,000 and $30,000 a day.

They would then deliver the drug proceeds, investigators said, to the small market at Southeast 124th and Powell Boulevard.

The cartel bosses in Mexico would contact González Vazquez, tell him that a street-level dealer was about to deliver cash to the store and he’d accept the bags of money, according to investigators.

González Vazquez would count the money, confirm the deliveries to the traffickers in Mexico by phone or text message and then receive multiple fake names and locations from the drug bosses to send the wire transfers. He would text the drug bosses a copy of the wire transfers to alert them they were on their way.

González Vazquez would keep each wire transfer below $3,000 and used three different international wire transfer companies to avoid law enforcement scrutiny, investigators said.

He was paid 5% of each transfer -- $50 for every $1,000 he laundered -- as his commission, according to prosecutors.

During the 10-month period covered by the indictment, González Vazquez earned an estimated $315,000 in commissions, according to a government analyst.

The drug cartel bosses directed González Vazquez to make the money transfers to four Mexican states: Baja California Norte, Jalisco, Michoacan and Nayarit.

From January 2015 to early October 2019, González Vazquez and one of his brothers laundered $19 million in more than 18,000 wire transfers from the market, prosecutors contend.

Investigators reviewed the names of the “senders” or customers purportedly making the wire transfers that González Vazquez provided to the companies and found that none matched the addresses given, two addresses didn’t exist and one came back to a food cart in a different city. The name of one false sender -- Teodoro Beltan -- is the name of a small region in El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico, according to prosecutors.

González Vazquez’s lawyer, Per Olson, argued that prosecutors exaggerated his client’s role in the drug trafficking organization and urged a lesser sentence of six years in prison.

Olson described his client as a family man who came to the United States about a decade ago and was “basically a shopkeeper” who started to make some illicit wire transfers “and it got out of control.”

He stressed that González Vazquez, unlike other co-defendants, has no prior arrest or criminal history. He blamed González Vazquez’s amicable nature, how he “goes out of his way to do things for people,” for getting him into trouble.

The tienda also wasn’t his sole source of income, Olson said, noting he had done other work to support his wife and children, such as forest fire management, interior construction and car sales. He also had medical ailments resulting in hernia surgery from mid-2013 through the spring of 2015, Olson said.

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon told González Vazquez that he was sentencing him to the higher end of the sentencing guidelines because he “caused a great deal of pain, hurt and suffering” to other people and their families.

“The punishment that you’re receiving for this crime is based upon the conduct that you have engaged in, and the harm to society that it has caused,” Simon said.

‘TOOK THOSE GUNS DOWN’

González Vazquez also worked to arrange the purchase of high-capacity rifles -- including AR-15 and AK-47 semi-automatic rifles -- to smuggle to Mexico. On April 27, 2019, federal agents stopped an Idaho gun seller who was hauling these eight rifles, three handguns and ammunition to Vazquez in Portland, according to prosecutors.

González Vazquez’s brother and co-defendant, Juan Antonio Romo, 46, worked in the operation but was more of a back-up and less active, prosecutors said. He has pleaded guilty to money laundering but has not been sentenced yet. Prosecutors will seek a four years and nine month prison term for Romo.

Case agents believe a third brother who owned the store -- a priest who was the only one of the three legally in the United States -- wasn’t actively involved in the crimes.

González Vazquez moved to Oregon around 2010 and began working with Romo at the González Bros. market, according to prosecutors.

The store was an authorized agent for three international money service businesses: Sigue Corp., Servicio UniTeller Inc. and Continental Exchange Solutions/Ria Financial, according to Rachel Royston, a fraud examiner with the Oregon Division of Financial Regulation who now works for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and assisted in the investigation.

Federal grand jury subpoenas were issued to all three for their records and transaction data relating to the Portland store from January 2015 through October 2019.

González Vazquez, prosecutors said, also was involved in an array of illegal side businesses, including working to arrange the purchase of high-capacity rifles -- including AR-15 and AK-47 semi-automatic rifles -- to smuggle to Mexico.

He set up the purchase of the rifles from an Idaho seller, who agreed to drive the guns to Portland. González Vazquez warned that the freeway to Portland was “full of cops,” according to court documents.

Federal agents intervened, stopping the Idaho seller en route and seizing eight rifles, three handguns and ammunition on April 27, 2019, the documents show.

“Law enforcement, jeopardizing the wiretap investigation, took those guns down,” Cardani said.

“The decision was made that it was just too dangerous too risky to let those guns” get to Portland, he told the court.

González Vazquez also helped a fugitive escape to Mexico, obtained false driver’s licenses for drug dealers and helped drug trafficking associates illegally enter the United States, Cardani said.

He’s the 20th defendant sentenced for his role in the operation. Fourteen others await sentencing and one is pending trial. Diaz, Monroy and several others remain fugitives.

Earlier this year, one of the leading drug dealers of the organization, Edgar Omar Quiroz Rodriguez, was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison. He was responsible for directing the distribution of enormous amounts of methamphetamine and heroin from Mexico into the Portland area.

In October 2019, investigators executed federal search warrants at more than a dozen places throughout the Portland area, seizing 22 pounds of methamphetamine, as well as quantities of heroin and cocaine and seven guns. 

Overall, law enforcement officers seized 51 guns, including assault rifles, shotguns, and handguns, from defendants affiliated with the Diaz-Monroy drug trafficking organization, according to prosecutors.

Investigators from Homeland Security Investigations worked with Gresham police, the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Oregon State Police, Portland police and the Multnomah, Clackamas, and Clark County Sheriff’s Offices on the case

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