Smuggling Drug Money To The Dominican Republic: Four Flight Attendants, Four Guilty Pleas
Four flight attendants, Sarah Valerio Pujols, 42, from the Bronx, New York; Charlie Hernandez, 42, from West New York, New Jersey; Emmanuel Torres, 35, from Brooklyn, New York; and Jarol Fabio, from New York, New York, have pleaded guilty to money laundering charges, according to a DOJ press release. The four attendants worked for international airlines with routes covering New York and the Dominican Republic.
With their “Known Crewmember” status with the TSA, the flight attendants could circumvent the stricter security lanes and enter a special lane with less security, the DOJ release details.
Dominican Drug Lords Like Their Proceeds in Hand-Delivered Cash
Since 2018, Homeland Security Investigations and the New York City Police Department have been investigating international narcotics trafficking, particularly Fentanyl trafficking, according to Torres and Fabio’s indictment. Traffickers in the Dominican Republic allegedly favor receiving their proceeds from U.S. sales in cash rather than digital currency or banking, so they often purportedly seek flight attendants at major airlines to pick up large bundles of money from the U.S. and deliver it to them.
In October 2021, authorities arrested someone on money laundering charges for moving drug money from New York to the Dominican Republic. That someone began cooperating with investigators, according to the Initial DOJ press release in May 2024.
Turning a Smuggler Into an Informant
The informant admitted that they worked with Pujols and Hernandez between 2014 and 2019 and estimated that Pujols smuggled about $1,500,000 in proceeds and Hernandez smuggled around $2,500,000 during those years, according to Pujols and Hernandez’s indictment. But in December 2019, the informant met with Hernandez in the Bronx and handed over $121,215 in narcotics trafficking money.
Hernandez kept $60,000 and gave Pujols $61,215. Later that day, at the airport, Pujols was stopped by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent, who discovered the money in Pujols’ purse. Hernandez did not deliver his portion of the money provided by the informant, who claimed not to know what Hernandez did with the money, according to the indictment.
The informant claimed to have worked with Torrez and Fabio from 2015, supplying each of them with $1.5 million from trafficked narcotics to deliver to the Dominican Republic, according to the indictment.
In June 2022, the informant met Torres in Brooklyn and handed off $60,000. Torres successfully delivered the money to someone in the Dominican Republic who was secretly working with police.
Nearly a year later, law enforcement repeated the same tactics using the informant to supply money to Fabio– also $60,000, which he then smuggled into the Dominican Republic.
Torres and Fabio were each charged with one count of operating an unlicensed money transmission business and one count of entering an airport while violating security requirements, per their indictment.
Meanwhile, Hernandez and Pujols were each charged with two counts of unlicensed money transmission, one count of entering an airport while violating security, and one count of bulk cash smuggling for Pujols, according to their indictment.
Sentencing for Pujols, Hernandez, and Fabio is set for mid-November, while Torres will be sentenced on January 6, 2025, according to the DOJ.
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