A Chinese national residing in Georgia pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in drug proceeds for an international money laundering network, the Department of Justice announced on June 3.
Huang Puquan, 50, was indicted in April 2025 along with two other members of the organization, which prosecutors said was responsible for laundering at least $30 million in proceeds tied to the trafficking of illegal drugs, including cocaine and fentanyl.
Beginning in 2021, Huang engaged in what prosecutors described as a “sophisticated trade-based money laundering scheme.”
Under the scheme, Huang and his coconspirators traveled to multiple states, including Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, to pick up bulk cash from illicit drug sales.
To evade police, the conspirators arranged their meetings with drug traffickers at odd hours in “atypical locations,” such as gas stations and parking lots, according to prosecutors. Additionally, they carried out the transactions without exchanging names or personal details; instead, the parties used “verification codes,” such as the serial numbers on U.S. dollar bills.
The conspirators also concealed their identities by using aliases and encrypted communication platforms, including the Chinese messaging app WeChat.
The three defendants worked with co-conspirators in other countries and locations, including China and Hong Kong, using drug proceeds to purchase bulk electronics in the United States and ship the products to associates in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, prosecutors said.
“Huang conspired to launder several millions of dollars of drug proceeds, with money pickups and exchanges typically ranging between approximately $80,000 and $200,000,” prosecutors said.
As part of the conspiracy, Huang picked up about $272,000 in drug proceeds from a Mexican co-conspirator in North Carolina in July 2021, before the money was subsequently seized by law enforcement during a traffic stop, according to the indictment.
The indictment, citing the Department of the Treasury’s 2024 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment, stated that a growing number of money-laundering schemes involve transactions in China. The trend is driven in part by “underground banking” or the “black market foreign exchange,” which serves Chinese expatriates seeking to exchange currency in the United States and enables individuals to circumvent China’s capital controls and restrictions on moving money abroad.
Huang faces 20 years in prison, according to the Department of Justice.
Huang’s lawyer declined to comment when contacted by The Epoch Times.
The two defendants who were indicted along with Huang last year are Nasir Ullah and Naim Ullah, both of Sumter, South Carolina.
“As alleged in the indictment, the defendants laundered tens of millions of dollars in drug proceeds from the United States through China and the Middle East, enabling a continuous flow of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into our country from Mexico,” Matthew R. Galeotti, then-head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a statement at the time.
“Dismantling transnational criminal organizations and Chinese Money Laundering Organizations that support them is a critical priority for the Department.”