Florida Company Pleads Guilty to Structuring Financial Transactions

ALBANY, NEW YORK – Latam Games, LLC of Miami, Florida, pled guilty today to structuring financial transactions to evade currency reporting requirements.

The announcement was made by United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith; Keith Kruskall, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); and James D. Robnett, Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-Criminal Investigation.

A bank is required to report a customer’s deposits of more than $10,000 in currency in a single transaction.  According to the plea agreement, between March 2013 and June 2013, to avoid these reports, Latam Games’s corporate officers broke cash deposits into amounts of less than $10,000 and deposited these smaller amounts in Florida, California, and New Jersey.  For example, the company deposited $4,240 on March 18, 2013, $7,445 on March 19, and $9,560 on March 20.  The company deposited $9,045 on April 25, 2013, and $9,000 the following day.

Latam Games admitted that it willfully violated federal law against structuring as part of a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a 12-month period.

Latam Games will be sentenced by Senior United States District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn on April 11, 2019, and faces a fine of up to $1 million.  A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and other factors.

Latam Games has also agreed to forfeit $2,076,155.11 to the United States. 

This case was investigated by the DEA and IRS-Criminal Investigation, and is being prosecuted by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth C. Coombe and was investigated by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Coffman.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Katz represented the United States in the civil forfeiture action.