A Los Angeles County wholesale clothes government was sentenced Friday to 4 years in jail for undervaluing imported clothes by greater than $32 million and failing to pay about $6.4 million in customs duties.
Mohamed Daoud Ghacham, 39, of Bell was additionally ordered to pay almost $6.4 million in restitution, in response to the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace.
Ghacham pleaded responsible in downtown Los Angeles in December 2022 to 1 federal rely of conspiracy to go false and fraudulent papers by a customs home.
The corporate — Ghacham Inc. — doing enterprise below the identify Platini, pleaded responsible to the cost of conspiracy to go false papers and one rely of conspiracy to interact in any transaction or dealing in properties of a specifically designated narcotics trafficker below a statute referred to as the Overseas Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.
This was the primary legal conviction within the district below the Kingpin Act, federal prosecutors mentioned.
At sentencing final yr, the corporate was ordered to pay almost $10.4 million and positioned on probation for 5 years for undervaluing imported clothes in a scheme to keep away from paying tens of millions of {dollars} in customs duties and for doing enterprise with a lady linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
Ghacham Inc. was additionally ordered by U.S. District Choose Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong in December to create and preserve an anti-money-laundering compliance and ethics program and undergo overview by a third-party monitor, who will report back to the courtroom on an annual foundation, in response to the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace.
Paperwork filed in Los Angeles federal courtroom present that Ghacham Inc. imported clothes from China and submitted fraudulent invoices to U.S. Customs and Border Safety that undervalued the shipments, permitting the corporate to keep away from paying the complete quantities of tariffs owed on the imports.
From July 2011 and February 2021, Ghacham Inc. and Mohamed Ghacham undervalued imported clothes by greater than $32 million and didn’t pay almost $6.4 million in customs duties, federal prosecutors mentioned.
Ghacham Inc. additionally illegally carried out enterprise with MarÃa Tiburcia Cazarez Pérez in violation of the Kingpin Act, which prohibits folks and companies in the USA from doing enterprise with “specifically designated narcotics traffickers,” in response to the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace.
Cazarez Pérez was beforehand listed below the act for her involvement within the monetary community of leaders of the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel.
“The corporate flouted the Kingpin Act, doing enterprise with member of a cash laundering community utilized by … two of the world’s most infamous drug traffickers,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “It cheated taxpayers out of tens of millions, each to avoid wasting itself cash and to safe an unfair edge towards its competitors within the Southern California garment market. And it did so by a sustained, intensive effort over the course of greater than a decade.”