New York Eastern District Federal Prosecutor said that a seemingly ordinary travel ticket agency in Queens has actually become a key node in a huge international money laundering network related to drug trafficking.
Accountant Rui Fang Yu, 40, from Flushing, was sentenced to two years in federal prison this week. Prosecutors accused her of assisting in laundering over $20 million in illegal cash from drug trafficking organizations linked to Mexican cartels, from the sale of heroin and cocaine in the United States between 2016 and 2020.
According to court documents, Yu worked as an accountant at an “airline ticket consolidator” in Queens, where she received large amounts of cash from co-conspirators and deposited it into her employer’s bank accounts. Subsequently, these funds were disguised through a method known as “trade-based money laundering,” pretending to be legitimate airplane ticket purchases and business transactions that did not actually take place, with the sole purpose of making drug money appear legitimate.
Prosecutors pointed out that after multiple conversions, the laundered funds were transferred to bank accounts controlled by co-conspirators in the United States and China, further complicating the tracking of fund flows.
Yu pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to launder money in August last year. During the sentencing hearing, her lawyer Kelvin Wu requested leniency from the court, stating that Yu is a first-time offender, a lawful permanent resident from Taishan, China, with two children to take care of and aging parents to support. The lawyer stated in a sentencing memorandum that Yu faced increased financial pressure after the birth of her second child, leading her to make a wrong decision, receiving only a small amount of compensation and not actually controlling or directing the flow of funds.
Nevertheless, the judge ruled for her to serve a two-year sentence. According to court documents, Yu may also face the risk of losing her green card and being deported to China upon completion of her sentence.
This case was jointly investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and prosecuted by the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The Department of Justice stated that the mission of the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section is to combat transnational organized crime and financial intermediaries, cut off the funding sources of drug trafficking groups, and protect the U.S. financial system from the harms of money laundering and related criminal activities.