Colombian Crypto Broker "Rey" Gets 160 Months in New York for Laundering $14.5 Million in Tether Drug Proceeds

Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque, a Colombia-based cryptocurrency broker known as "Rey", was sentenced on October 21, 2026, in New York to 160 months in federal prison — 13 years and four months — for his supervisory role in laundering about $14.5 million (yaani about $1.45 crore) in Tether (USDT) derived from drug trafficking, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil also ordered five years of supervised release and forfeiture of $14,751,846 plus cryptocurrency held in four addresses he controlled, prosecutors said.

Awaaz Punjab Investigations Desk24 October 20264 min readRead in all 3 languages

NEW YORK — A Colombia-based cryptocurrency broker has been sentenced to 160 months in federal prison for laundering drug-trafficking proceeds through the Tether stablecoin, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced on October 21, 2026. Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque, known as "Rey", received the sentence — 13 years and four months — from U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.

Source: TokenPost, Oct. 22, 2026, reporting the SDNY announcement

Prosecutors said Zuluaga Duque held a supervisory role in an international network that, between May and November 2023, laundered approximately $14.5 million in Tether (USDT) derived from drug trafficking. In addition to the prison term, he must serve five years of supervised release and forfeit $14,751,846, plus cryptocurrency tokens previously held in four addresses he controlled. Crowdfund Insider reported the same sentence, forfeiture and supervised-release terms in its coverage of the announcement.

Source: Crowdfund Insider, Oct. 22, 2026

According to prosecutors, drug proceeds were converted into Tether and passed to an unlicensed money-transmitting business, which exchanged the tokens for U.S. dollars. U.S.-based shell companies then sent the dollars to Colombian companies, where the money was converted into pesos and distributed, TradingView's NewsBTC coverage of the announcement reported.

Source: TradingView / NewsBTC, Oct. 23, 2026

Prosecutors also linked Zuluaga Duque to a cocaine-import conspiracy: in November 2023, confidential sources working with law enforcement arranged the purchase of about nine kilograms of cocaine paste intended to be processed and delivered to New York, and he received a commission for helping arrange the transaction, according to the case account reported by Crowdfund Insider. A later negotiation for roughly 100 kilograms of cocaine paste in early 2024 led Colombian police to recover about 111 kilograms, and Zuluaga Duque and other defendants were arrested in Medellin on April 30, 2024, with assistance from Interpol.

All five co-defendants in the case have now been sentenced, with prison terms ranging from three to eight years, prosecutors said. The case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations' New York El Dorado Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Field Office, with assistance from the Colombian National Police and other international partners, according to the reports.

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