Denver Post: New Documents Reveal Details Of Fed Raids On Co Pot Industry

[garyfisher]

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26643395/documents-reveal-new-details-feds-raid-colorado-pot

Federal agents seized hundreds of pounds of marijuana, 161 pieces of jewelry and $800,000 in cash — including nearly $450,000 stashed in the trunk of a car — from Colorado pot businesses with Colombian ties, according to records obtained by The Denver Post on Wednesday.

The forfeiture document, in which federal authorities formally seek to confiscate the items, offers the most detailed account yet of the allegations stemming from Denver-area raids executed in November 2013. They were the largest-ever federal raids on the Colorado marijuana industry.

The document alleged that those indicted — Denver attorney David Furtado, marijuana business owner Gerardo Uribe, his brother and business associate Luis Uribe and Colombian national Hector Diaz — participated in a scheme that grew marijuana in Colorado, shipped pot to Chicago and Florida and smuggled cash to Colombia.

The men were indicted in connection to the Nov. 21 raids. They each could face 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges facing them. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Messages left by The Post for Furtado and Luis Uribe were not immediately returned. Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for U.S. Attorney John Walsh, said he could not comment because of pending litigation.

 
Documents reveal new details of feds' raid on Colorado pot operations

By Kirk Mitchell The Denver Post

Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014 - 3:08 p.m.


Gerardo Uribe ( Denver Post file photo>)
Federal agents seized hundreds of pounds of marijuana, 161 pieces of jewelry and $800,000 in cash — including nearly $450,000 stashed in the trunk of a car — from Colorado pot businesses with Colombian ties, according to records obtained by The Denver Post on Wednesday.

The forfeiture document, in which federal authorities formally seek to confiscate the items, offers the most detailed account yet of the allegations stemming from Denver-area raids executed in November 2013. They were the largest-ever federal raids on the Colorado marijuana industry.

The document alleged that those indicted — Denver attorney David Furtado, marijuana business owner Gerardo Uribe, his brother and business associate Luis Uribe and Colombian national Hector Diaz — participated in a scheme that grew marijuana in Colorado, shipped pot to Chicago and Florida and smuggled cash to Colombia.

The men were indicted in connection to the Nov. 21 raids. They each could face 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges facing them. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Messages left by The Post for Furtado and Luis Uribe were not immediately returned. Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for U.S. Attorney John Walsh, said he could not comment because of pending litigation.

Advertisement

The document spells out how federal authorities relied on a web of confidential informants who reported on the activities of Furtado and others.

At one point, one of the conspirators complained he had accumulated $1 million in cash and needed a way to launder the money, according to the document. Furtado allegedly began funneling proceeds from about a dozen Colorado medical marijuana dispensaries into a Colombian bank account in undetectable amounts.

The document indicates that federal agents confiscated various amounts of cash from bank accounts and medical marijuana businesses and also $449,980 found in the trunk of Furtado's car. Agents also seized five watches including a Rolex purchased in Las Vegas for $11,050 in cash, 161 pieces of jewelry, 1.8 million in Colombian Pesos ($883 dollars), a 2010 Jeep Wrangler and a 2007 Hummer H3.

A joint investigation involving IRS, Drug Enforcement Administration and Denver police began on Jan. 1, 2011, into the operations of the "Uribe/Furtado marijuana distribution network."

Alleged conspirators began in July 2010 to buy numerous medical marijuana dispensaries including VIP Cannabis, 2527 Federal Blvd., in Denver and Grateful Meds, 110 Snyder St., in Nederland.

Someone whom Furtado recruited to start a residential grow operation became a confidential informant. The informant told agents that Furtado was "a master grower" who honed his skills in college with classmates and was planning to get out of law because of the lucrative pot business.

The informant said Furtado believed 10 marijuana harvests were diverted for sales outside Colorado and were not sold in medical marijuana dispensaries. Furtado recruited another person to grow marijuana in warehouses in September 2010, the document said. This person also became an informant.

A third source also said the marijuana was transported out of Colorado, according to the filing. This source overheard Furtado once arranging to have marijuana flown to Florida to be sold illegally on the streets. Furtado tried to get the source to sell pot illegally, court records indicate.

An undercover agent overheard Joseph Tavares, the manager of Grateful Meds, say that alleged co-conspirator Gerardo Uribe was clearing about $500,000 a month, documents say.

In August 2013, a fourth confidential source sent a $9,000 wire transfer to Colombia as a test to see if the money could be traced. In October 2013, Uribe-Cristancho told the informant he had "accumulated too much cash," a total of $1 million, and needed help laundering the money. The informant said he could transport the money by air.

On Nov. 21, agents seized 13,524 marijuana plants, 750 pounds of processed marijuana and 2,500 pounds of marijuana products including edibles and lotions, the document says. They also seized 30 gallons of hash oil, 11 assault rifles, a shotgun and 10 hand guns.

A fifth confidential source told agents that Shawn Masad, a partner with Gerardo Uribe, the owner of VIP Wellness Center, which grossed $1.4 million in 2011, told him he intended to transport a harvest from 100 pot plants to Chicago for illegal sales. The informant was asked to take the pot to Chicago.

Although VIP stores had sales totaling only about $720,000 in 2011, Furtado told a source that they were showing a profit of $3 million, according to the document. He was running money through his trust account to buy assets and pay off lawsuits, Furtado allegedly told the informant.

On Oct. 31, surveillance officer saw Furtado leaving VIP with two large brown sacks. Denver police made a traffic stop and found nearly $450,000 in the trunk. Furtado, who gave the detective permission to search his trunk, told the officer the money was to be used to buy a metal business.

When the officer told Furtado the money reeked of marijuana, the attorney explained he had just left a marijuana dispensary and the money had been kept in a safe there. The detective confiscated the money.

Furtado later called the officer, admitted he had lied about what the money was to be used for, but said the money was not his and that it was needed to buy a warehouse that was to be used as a marijuana grow operation. He said they stood to lose $1.7 million in earnest money he had already paid in the warehouse deal.

The document says Colombian investor Ricardo Moises Pedrosa financed several of the grow operations with electronic wire transfers from Colombia to Colorado. Profits from the business were funneled back to him through a business called THMS Properties LLC., the document says.

On Jan. 26, 2012, Pedrosa sent two wire transfers, one for $100,000 and another for $300,000, to a Bank of the West account in the name of Furtado's law firm. The following day, wire transfers totaling $300,000 went from the law firm to VIP Wellness Center's West Denver Community Credit Union account.

Pedrosa also financed a Boulder marijuana dispensary owned by Wendy and Laszlo Bagi with a $250,000 loan on Feb. 23, 2012, the document said.

Pedrosa e-mailed a message in Spanish on Sept. 12, 2012 to Gerardo Uribe titled "THMS Properties pay dates," explaining that $370,000 payments were to be made on the 15th of every month.

Another Colombian entity called Soluri Consulting funneled international funds to Uribe's dispensaries with check memos "VIP/REMEDY," the document said. Gerardo Uribe often carried about $15,000 in cash with him all the time.

The indictment indicates it is a federal crime to deposit marijuana proceeds in a bank because all money made selling marijuana is considered illegal under federal law.

Edited October 3, 2014 by garyfisher

[t-pain]

Furtado later called the officer, admitted he had lied

furtado sounds like a terrible lawyer.

[Habenero]

 

I'm sick of this Central American crap getting in here. I know they're saying it was grow in Colorado but there is obviously some connection with the money going to Columbia. Mexico is in a state or terror with their inability to control the fighting drug cartels. Anyone seen videos of the killings done by those rival cartels? CDG, Sinaloa, Zeta. They torture and behead hundreds of Columbians and other central Americans that come into Mexico and refuse to act as drug mules. Google zeta executions if you enjoy seeing people getting their heads cut off. They chop people into pieces and sometimes put them in metal drums full of acid to turn them into soup. I saw a video where they behead some guy with a chainsaw. Makes you sick to watch but we need to know what goes on down there. If the American gubbermint would legalize marijuana and allow widespread growing the Mexican cartels would be completely economically destroyed with a few months and all of that would end abruptly.

 

Legalize it already. Drug war fail. Imprisoning people---fail. Burdening the system---fail.  Execution and torture--fail.

[garyfisher]

The drug war isn't a failure if you're invested in the prison industry complex

[Habenero]

Criminals are a dime a dozen. We would still be able to keep the prisons at capacity. Overcrowding has led to the release of tons of inmates. They probably let the safer and less violent criminals go when overcrowding happens. Keep the evil potheads in prison and release the less dangerous like the child molesters.

[trichcycler]

:oDispensaries with Columbian drug ties,.....say it isn't so

[Habenero]

No there wouldn't. Overcrowding goes way beyond marijuana. It's due to the attitude towards criminals. We should be rehabilitating and teaching job skills in prisons instead of warehousing. Total narcotic arrests in Michigan in 2012 were less than 10% of the total arrests in the state. I don't know what percent of the narcotic arrests were for marijuana but I do know that the courts churn out more criminal convictions for all crime than our jails and prisons can warehouse.

 

You know when a county jail is at capacity the local judges get a memo telling them that if they sentence anyone to jail then the sheriff will have to make a call on who to let walk to accommodate the new inmate? That's a constant thing in counties. Judges will hold back on sentencing to jail when the jails are overcrowded but then when they get the memo that says the hotel has some vacancy they will start sentencing people to jail again. You can take away all marijuana convictions and it won't put a significant dent in jail populations because of this. The problem is deeper than any particular crime it's the engrained attitude of the powers that be that the best place for someone convicted of a crime is a cell. We need a complete reform. We need community based tools that will rehabilitate instead of incarcerate. We need to dump these conservative judges. Ain't nobody got time for that.

[trichcycler]

non violent Columbian drug cartels, ...now that would be special. I think they call those "dispensaries" at least in Colorado

[trichcycler]

nobody arrested or charged yet did I see? after almost a year?