3 Plead Guilty to Laundering Drug Money
FULLERTON — Three Colombian nationals pleaded guilty Friday to charges that they laundered more than $500,000 in drug money, authorities said.
Nasly DeCarmen Fernandez, 31, and Juan Manuel Montoya, 24, both of Fullerton, and Jorge Munoz Zuleta, 33, of Corona were arrested Oct. 16 after detectives seized from their homes about $500,000 in drug money and ledgers that apparently recorded cocaine sales, police said.
Fernandez was arrested after police followed her to a post office and intercepted a package marked “shampoo,” which contained $10,000, Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph P. Smith said.
Smith said Fernandez had rolled up the money, stuffed it into empty shampoo bottles and packed the bottles in cartons for shipment to Colombia.
Later that day, officers searched Fernandez’s house and found $490,000 wrapped in bundles bound with rubber bands inside three boxes in a closet, police said. Montoya also lived at the residence.
The three, who are being held at Orange County Jail, are scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 24 by Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino.
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