GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Five people who the U.S. Department of Justice says are connected to an international drug trafficking and money laundering ring were arrested in Gwinnett County on Tuesday.
Channel 2’s Courtney Francisco was at a news conference on Tuesday where federal officials announced the arrests.
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Among those arrested were mother and daughter, 49-year-old Sandra Beatriz Hernandez Chilel and 22-year-old Karina Beatriz Perez Hernandez. The others include David Miranda Vinalay, 39, Jerome Lewis, 47, and Irving Joel Hernandez, 34.
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi says all five were working alongside the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
According to the indictment, Drug Enforcement Administration investigators learned drug traffickers were delivering bulk currency from drug sales to a middleman in Norcross.
That middleman would then allegedly bring the money to Hernandez Chilel and Perez Hernandez who would launder it through their money service business, La Pulga Eseperenza.
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IRS investigators determined that over a two-month period, more than $1 million in drug proceeds was laundered and wired to Mexico in small increments to not raise suspicion.
The DEA says Vinalay, Lewis and Hernandez were some of the alleged traffickers brining the drug proceeds to the middleman. The indictment adds that some of them had methamphetamine and fentanyl that they intended to sell.
“Thanks to the great investigative work of our federal partners and local law enforcement, five individuals working on behalf of the violent JNGC cartel have been taken off our streets,” said Bondi. “We will not allow these criminal enterprises to continue profiting off of the death and destruction of American lives.”
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