2 sentenced for laundering billions in South American gold

2 sentenced for laundering billions in South American gold
Updated 3:02 pm, Friday, January 19, 2018

MIAMI (AP) — Two Florida businessmen have been sentenced in a $3.6 billion money-laundering case involving South American gold.

Federal court records show that 40-year-old Samer Barrage was sentenced to six years and eight months Friday, and 36-year-old Juan Granda received six years. They previously admitted importing illegally mined gold from Peru and other South American countries into the United States.

Court documents show the men smuggled tainted gold between January 2013 and March 2017 for NTR Metals in Miami. The company is owned by a Dallas-based parent company, Elemetal. Neither NTR nor Elemetal has been charged in the case.

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/2-sentenced-for-laundering-billions-in-South-12511043.php



Google translation:

3/29/2017 8:21:00 PM

So they captured 'Sam', the gringo gold entrepreneur

At the Cali airport, the American Samer Hadi Barrage was captured, accused of having created a multinational illegally trading precious metals in three Latin American countries.



A business talk with unusual partners was the one that ended the "successful career" of the American gold merchant Samer Hadi Barrage, alias "Sam", who after meeting with some ringleaders of the "Gulf Clan", was captured this Wednesday at the Alfonso Bonilla Aragón airport.

. . .

"This citizen was captured at the Alfonso Bonilla Aragón airport, in the city of Cali, in compliance with a red circular order from Interpol," said Gaula director General Fernando Murillo Murillo.

During the days he was in Colombia, alias "Sam" would have talked with illegal armed groups from Valle del Cauca, Cauca and Nariño looking for funding to coordinate the shipment of gold and cocaine through the Colombian Pacific coast.

"The investigation that was being developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), managed to establish that the captured was seeking to approach the heads of the Gulf Clan," said General Murillo.

More:
http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/captura-de-samer-hadi-barrage/520132




FRAUD. Former executive Juan Pablo Granda when he is arrested by MIami police.


MEGAFRAUDE IN MIAMI

Amassed billions of dollars with mines of drug traffickers and criminals
The manager of a metals refining company created a smuggling network that generated billions of dollars worth of illegal gold and money laundering.

Monday, April 17, 2017

In mid-March, Juan Pablo Granda was dismissed from his position as a South American gold sales agent for the company NTR Metals, a precious metals refining company based in Colombia, and on the same day, at his home in Miami, federal agents they appeared with an arrest warrant for the Ecuadorian nationalized Ecuadorian.

"At no time Mr. Granda did anything to hint that he intended to escape," said Daniel Rashbaum, the defense attorney for the young graduate of Florida State University.

Granda, 35, is awaiting trial in what is considered one of the largest money laundering cases in the history of South Florida.

It is presumed a plot whose center is South American drug traffickers suspected of laundering billions of dollars in illegally obtained gold, for which they used Granda and two other employees of NTR Metals in Miami. If found guilty, everyone could be sentenced to 20 years in prison.

More:
http://www.tucumanalas7.com.ar/internacional/estados-unidos/2017/4/17/amaso-miles-millones-dolares-minas-narcos-criminales-157925.html