Dirty money is piling up in Los Angeles. In the last three weeks, federal agents made three seizures that each netted more than $1 million in suspected drug proceeds.

The reason, according to the city's top drug enforcement official: The coronavirus pandemic has slowed trade-based money laundering systems that drug trafficking groups use torepatriate profits and move Chinese capital into Southern California.

With storefronts closed, supply chains in disarray and the global economy in peril, these complex schemes are hobbled and cash is backing up in Los Angeles, Bill Bodner,special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Los Angeles field division, said in an interview.

The recent million-dollar interceptions were reminiscent of seizures the DEA made before drug traffickers embraced trade-based money laundering, said Bodner, a 28-yearagent.

The shuttering of nonessential businesses has made a "tremendous impact" on a money laundering system dubbed the black market peso exchange, he said. In the fashion district indowntown Los Angeles â€" the exchange's epicenter â€" drug trafficking groups from throughout the country use wholesalers to remit profits to Mexico, according to cases filed infederal courts in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Recently, with storefronts closed and agents seizing millions in cash packaged for transport, it appears drug trafficking groups are resorting to older, riskier ways ofrepatriating profits, Bodner said.

To read the complete article, see:
Dirty money piling up in L.A. as coronavirus cripples internationalmoney laundering (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-29/coronavirus-slows-money-laundering-to-a-crawl)