the US Department of Justice. <\/a><\/p>\nRui Fang Yu, 40, was sentenced on Monday for laundering over $20 million in drug trafficking cash through an airline ticket business where she worked as an accountant. kinomaster \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
Yu accepted large amounts of cash from co-conspirators who were laundering drug proceeds, including from the sale of heroin and cocaine in the US through a Mexican cartel-linked drug trafficking organization, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n
She used her role as an accountant at an \u201cairline ticket consolidator\u201d in Flushing to launder the illicit cash through her employer\u2019s bank accounts, officials said. The business she was employed by is not immediately clear.<\/p>\n
Yu used a complex scheme that involved trade-based money laundering to conceal the drug profits through phony business transactions made to purchase airline tickets, officials added. <\/p>\n
The accountant and her co-conspirators laundered the funds to accounts controlled by other co-conspirators in the US and China, prosecutors charged. <\/p>\n
Yu used a complex scheme that involved trade-based money laundering to conceal the drug profits through phony business transactions made to purchase airline tickets. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n
In August, Yu pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, federal authorities said. <\/p>\n
Her lawyer, King L. Wu, argued in a memo that Yu \u2014 a first-time offender and legal permanent resident in the US from Taishan, China \u2014 should be sentenced to time served or probation. <\/p>\n
Yu, a mother of two who also cares for her elderly parents, has \u201cexpressed deep regret throughout this case,\u201d and was driven to engage in the laundering scheme after financial hardships, her attorney wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer financial struggles intensified after the birth of her second child. With rising expenses and
fewer hours at work, she became overwhelmed,\u201d the memo read. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn that period of vulnerability, she made the worst decision of her life. She agreed to deposit funds for others, telling herself it was a simple favor connected to business dealings,\u201d Wu wrote. <\/p>\n
In August, Yu pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cShe did not control the money, did not direct anyone, and earned only small amounts for her efforts. She now understands how wrong it was and accepts responsibility for not saying no.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yu now also faces the loss of her green card and deportation to China, the memo said. <\/p>\n
Wu did not immediately respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment. <\/p>\n
The Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI investigated the case, authorities said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Queens woman learned her fate for laundering over $20 million in years-long drug trafficking cash through an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[30718,648,57,15780,9,56,63,65,64,122,3209,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-120984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-drug-cartels","9":"tag-flushing","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-money-laundering","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-queens","18":"tag-sentencing","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}