Federal prosecutors allege two Denver-area Mexican restaurants are linked to a vast money-laundering operation with ties to recently convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico, court records indicate.
Owners of two Taco Star restaurants in Commerce City and Thornton allegedly helped launder drug proceeds to a Colorado Springs food distributing company, El Potosino Foods, located at 3518 N. El Paso St., and then to Mexican drug cartels, federal court records say.
Attempts to reach El Potosino and the Taco Star in Commerce City on Friday afternoon were unsuccessful. An employee at the Thornton Taco Star restaurant had no comment on the money-laundering allegations.
Prosecutors recently filed a forfeiture lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne, Wyo., against 17 bank and safe-deposit accounts in Colorado and Wyoming, including 11 Wells Fargo accounts, in order to seize $1.52 million allegedly tied to the drug operation.
The lawsuit says that the money was collected through illegal narcotics sales and laundered through a dozen Mexican restaurants throughout the Denver area, Greeley, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyo.
Read the full story via The Denver Post.