An attorney who laundered millions of dollars for the violent Mexican drug cartel led by “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to 15 years and eight months in federal prison on a money-laundering conspiracy charge.
Juan Manuel Álvarez Inzunza, 40, received the punishment on Friday, after being arrested in 2016 in Mexico, where he was detained until his extradition to the U.S. last year.
The disgraced lawyer admitted he laundered money for the Sinaloa Cartel from at least December 2013 to August 2015, and told a federal judge in San Diego, California, that he was “deeply remorseful,” and thanked the US government for capturing him, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
In a news release, prosecutors said Álvarez Inzunza “regularly received requests” to arrange the collection of drug proceeds in the U.S. that originated “from the top leadership of the cartel — including Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada and Joaquin ‘Chapo’ Guzmán.”
Guzman is serving life in federal prison after his 2019 conviction on charges of running the multibillion-dollar narcotics operation was upheld in January.
An orphan raised by poor relatives in Culiacán, a city in northwestern Mexico, Álvarez Inzunza ran a private law firm there, and when “the wrong client came in, and he listened to them” he began his foray into working with the drug cartel, his defense attorney Frederick Carroll said at Friday’s hearing.
with Post wires