Colombian Crypto Broker Gets 13 Years for Laundering $14.5M in USDT

A federal court in the Southern District of New York sentenced Colombian crypto broker Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque, known as "Rey," to 160 months, or more than 13 years, in prison. The SDNY U.S. Attorney's Office announced the sentence on Oct. 21, 2026. He laundered drug proceeds through the Tether (USDT) stablecoin.

Details

According to the prosecutors' announcement, Zuluaga Duque held a supervisory role in an international network that laundered about $14.5 million in USDT derived from drug trafficking. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil imposed the sentence. He must also forfeit $14.75 million and the digital assets held in four crypto addresses he controlled.

Bitcoin.com and Crypto Briefing report the laundering took place in 2023 and that he was arrested in Colombia in April 2024. The case is tied to the prosecution of Maximilien de Hoop Cartier, who received eight years for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through shell companies and crypto accounts.

What this means for the market

U.S. authorities keep tracing USDT flows and are securing long prison terms for intermediaries, not only for ringleaders. It is not a price driver, but a reminder that stablecoin activity stays under regulators' watch. For the live bitcoin price see the daily briefing; for the token, the Tether page.