by Steven Richards
Though charged in 2023, Colombian national Michael Nunez Daza was only extradited to the U.S. earlier this year.
The Justice Department this week announced Colombian national Michael "Luky" Nunez Daza, the leader of a transnational drug money laundering operation, has been sentenced to 60 months in prison, as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Take Back America.
Nunez Daza's sentence follows him pleading guilty in August to one count of money laundering conspiracy in the U.S. District Court Southern District of Florida, in which he also was sentenced.
The department, in announcing the sentence Wednesday, said that it was part of the Take Back operation "that marshals the full resources of the [agency] to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations."
The sentencing comes amid President Donald Trump ramping up efforts to combat the illicit drug trade, primarily from South America.
He has directed increasing strikes to interdict suspected drug-running operations in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, while putting pressure on Venezuela, a country run by dictator Nicolás Maduro, who the Trump administration says is giving support to drug traffickers.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration designated the Venezuela-based Cartel de los Soles–Cartel of the Suns in English– as a terrorist organization. The United States believes that the cartel is headed by Maduro himself and senior Venezuelan officials.
The Venezuelan government "categorically, firmly, and absolutely rejected" the designation.
Last week, the pressure reached a new stage after the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, arrived in the region at the direction of the president.
Nunez Daza led a transnational operation between his native Colombia, Mexico, and the United States to launder drug trafficking proceeds from Mexico across multiple U.S. cities, the Justice Department said.
Though Nunez Daza was first indicted in 2023 under the Biden administration, he was not extradited to the United States until earlier this year.
He organized “bulk cash pickups” of drug trafficking proceeds from Mexico in multiple U.S. cities. After he picked up the cash, Nunez Daza deposited the money in several U.S. bank accounts registered under different entities and individuals. From there, the proceeds were transferred to Cali, Colombia, where they were picked up by Nunez Daza and his couriers, the Justice Department said.
In just eight months between 2017 and 2018 “he laundered $1.2 million for his co-conspirators based in Mexico.
Nunez Daza was not new to drug-related offenses in the United States. He was previously convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and deported to his native Colombia in 2004.
According to an investigation by the Colombian, Spanish-language outlet El Tiempo, Nunez Daza appears to be the owner of Dats Inversiones S.A.S., a company registered in Cali, Colombia in 2020. The entity’s main office was listed in the Torre Krystal building located in the Colombian capital, Bogotá. The company purportedly engaged in consulting and the sale of stationery and household goods, the investigation found.
The government of Colombia, Maduro’s neighbor, has also pushed back on the U.S. strikes against suspected drug boats and military pressure on the Venezuelan regime, Just the News previously reported.
President Gustavo Petro, a leftist and former member of an armed insurgent group in his country, has ramped up his rhetoric, labeling the strikes as a violation of international law. He also said the strikes violate the human rights of South Americans.
At least 83 people have been killed in 21 known U.S. airstrikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels, which the Trump administration has labeled "narco-terror" operations.
Petro asserted the passengers “were not drug traffickers; they were simply poor young people from Latin America who had no other option.”
The administration's shift to the Western Hemisphere began in the earliest days of the administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio–himself of Cuban heritage–signaled the reorientation of U.S. foreign policy shortly after he was confirmed, arguing for an “An Americas First Foreign Policy” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed Rubio in his confirmation hearing and suggested that expanding the role of the U.S. military in the hemisphere is necessary to reestablishing U.S. deterrence globally.
Steven Richards
Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/crime/colombian-drug-money-launderer-sentenced-trump-ramps-effort-combat-narco-terrorism
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