A Chinese American gangster transformed money laundering for drug cartels(propublica.org)

    1) The Colombian drug cartels export drugs to the United States;
    2) Drugs are sold for dollars in the U.S.;
    3) A cartel in Colombia enters into a “contract” with the Colombian
    Black Market Peso Exchanger who is usually in Colombia;
    4) The cartel sells its U.S. dollars to the Exchanger’s U.S. agent;
    5) Once the U.S. dollars are delivered, the peso exchanger in Colombia
    deposits the agreed upon equivalent (of U.S. dollars) in Colombian
    pesos into the cartel’s account in Colombia; (At this point, the cartel
    representative is out of the picture because he has successfully converted his drug dollars into pesos.)
    6) The Colombian Black Market Peso Exchanger now assumes the risk
    for introducing the laundered drug dollars into the U.S. banking
    system; this is done through a variety of structured transactions;
    7) The Colombian Black Market Peso Exchanger now has a pool of
    laundered funds in U.S. dollars to sell to Colombian importers who
    use the dollars to purchase goods, either from the U.S. or from collateral markets; and
    8) Finally, these goods are transported to Colombia.