EL PASO, TEXAS — A judge last month sentenced an El Paso attorney to 20 years in federal prison for conspiring with others to launder $600 million in illegal drug money for members of a drug trafficking organization, according to federal officials.
A jury convicted attorney Marco Antonio Delgado, a.k.a Marco Delgado Licon, for conspiracy to launder money for the Milenio Drug Trafficking Organization in October, prosecutors said.
Between 2007 and 2008, Delgado conspired with others to launder $600 million.
The Carroll County, Georgia Sheriff’s Department and Department of Homeland Security seized $1 million going from Atlanta to Mexico via El Paso, federal officials stated.
Also Homeland Security seized $50,000 in drug money. The money went from Chicago to Delgado’s Attorney Interest on Lawyers’ Trust bank account.
Delgado is currently set to go to trial again on March 31, 2014, based on a separate superseding indictment, charging him with three wire fraud counts and 16 money laundering counts—seven of which allege intent to conceal proceeds of illegal activity and nine of which allege spending of proceeds derived from illegal activity.
In January 2010, Delgado, as a legal representative of FGG Enterprises, Inc. signed a $121 million contract between FGG and the Comision Federal de Electricidad, a Mexican-state-owned utility company, for the acquisition and maintenance of equipment at the Agua Prieta II power plant located in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico.
Payments from Comision Federal to FGG were to be deposited into a FGG bank account located in El Paso. Delgado allegedly caused two wire transfers one on March 8, 2010 in the amount of $20 million and one on July 6, 2010, in the amount of $12 million—to be deposited into a bank account he controlled located in the Turks and Caicos Islands, say federal authorities in El Paso.
Federal officials allege that Delgado subsequently wire transferred approximately $1.9 million from the Turks and Caicos Island bank account to bank accounts in El Paso; Taos, NM; and, Pittsburgh, PA, in order to either conceal the nature, location, source or ownership of the proceeds, or spend the proceeds, derived from his scheme.