Date: July 2, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
Tampa, FL — Senior U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington has sentenced Miguel Alexander Perez Perez (Dominican Republic) to eight years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was also ordered to forfeit $1,600,110. Perez Perez pleaded guilty on Jan. 22, 2025.
According to court documents, Perez Perez was a broker of money laundering “contracts.” He participated in the collection of drug proceeds in the United States for introduction into the U.S. banking system. He concealed the source of those proceeds through trade-based money laundering schemes that included the purchase of devices such as cellphones in the United States. The devices were then sold abroad. From June to August 2020, federal law enforcement completed four such money laundering contracts with Perez Perez in an undercover capacity. During a separate contract that Perez Perez brokered in July 2020, the Florida Highway Patrol stopped a money courier and seized more than $1 million in drug proceeds.
This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Florida Highway Patrol. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dan Baeza.
This case was part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multiagency approach.
IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.