LOS ANGELES: A Mexican national has been arrested in California on charges of helping drug traffickers launder more than $60 million in proceeds through an elaborate scheme.
Gustavo Barba, 59, of Guadalajara, was detained on Tuesday as he sought to enter the US through San Diego, authorities said on Thursday.
Three of his associates were also jailed and charged in the 32-count indictment that details how the group laundered millions of dollars in drug proceeds through legitimate businesses in Mexico and South America.
Barba’s organization allegedly laundered the money by using a “Black Market Peso Exchange” (BMPE) scheme to convert millions of dollars in drug money generated in the United States into pesos that were then delivered to drug cartels in Mexico.
“The BMPE involves both illegal drug trafficking and legitimate businesses operating throughout the Americas, and the scheme solves problems faced by both groups,” prosecutors said in a statement.
“Drug cartels have massive amounts of US currency, often in small denominations, that is difficult to transport in bulk or to deposit into financial institutions,” it added.
“At the same time, some legitimate businesses in Mexico want US dollars in the United States to pay domestic suppliers and manufacturers so they can avoid incurring fees and taxes that would result if they wired the money to the US through legitimate channels.”
The BMEP brings the two groups together through a broker, according to the indictment, which was handed down last July but remained sealed until Thursday.
Once the peso broker facilitates the transactions for both sides, the cartels and the legitimate businesses, the proceeds are turned over to drug dealers or intermediaries, completing the cycle, authorities said.
Three other suspects are being sought in the case, including Barba’s 77-year-old father-in-law, Roberto Castaneda, who allegedly coordinated the delivery of the drug profits.
The other two suspects allegedly acted as couriers.
Mexican drug ringleader nabbed in US
Mexican drug ringleader nabbed in US
Zuckerberg says Meta no longer designs apps to maximize screentime
- Meta Platforms CEO faces questioned at a landmark trial over youth social media addiction
- It was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users
LOS ANGELES: Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back in court on Wednesday against a lawyer’s suggestion that he had misled Congress about the design of its social media platforms, as a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues.
Zuckerberg was questioned on his statements to Congress in 2024, at a hearing where he said the company did not give its teams the goal of maximizing time spent on its apps.
Mark Lanier, a lawyer for a woman who accuses Meta of harming her mental health when she was a child, showed jurors emails from 2014 and 2015 in which Zuckerberg laid out aims to increase time spent on the app by double-digit percentage points. Zuckerberg said that while Meta previously had goals related to the amount of time users spent on the app, it has since changed its approach.
“If you are trying to say my testimony was not accurate, I strongly disagree with that,” Zuckerberg said.
The appearance was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users.
While Zuckerberg has previously testified on the subject before Congress, the stakes are higher at the jury trial in Los Angeles, California. Meta may have to pay damages if it loses the case, and the verdict could erode Big Tech’s longstanding legal defense against claims of user harm.
The lawsuit and others like it are part of a global backlash against social media platforms over children’s mental health.
Australia has prohibited access to social media platforms for users under age 16, and other countries including Spain are considering similar curbs. In the US, Florida has prohibited companies from allowing users under age 14. Tech industry trade groups are challenging the law in court.
The case involves a California woman who started using Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube as a child. She alleges the companies sought to profit by hooking kids on their services despite knowing social media could harm their mental health. She alleges the apps fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts and is seeking to hold the companies liable.
Meta and Google have denied the allegations, and pointed to their work to add features that keep users safe. Meta has often pointed to a National Academies of Sciences finding that research does not show social media changes kids’ mental health.
The lawsuit serves as a test case for similar claims in a larger group of cases against Meta, Alphabet’s Google, Snap and TikTok. Families, school districts and states have filed thousands of lawsuits in the US accusing the companies of fueling a youth mental health crisis. Over the years, investigative reporting has unearthed internal Meta documents showing the company was aware of potential harm.
Meta researchers found that teens who report that Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more “eating disorder adjacent content” than those who did not, Reuters reported in October.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, testified last week that he was unaware of a recent Meta study showing no link between parental supervision and teens’ attentiveness to their own social media use. Teens with difficult life circumstances more often said they used Instagram habitually or unintentionally, according to the document shown at trial.
Meta’s lawyer told jurors at the trial that the woman’s health records show her issues stem from a troubled childhood, and that social media was a creative outlet for her.
