A Colombian woman who laundered more than $1.5 million for the mafia may be extradited, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
Juliana Rubio Isaza who worked for the now liquidated brokerage firm Stanford S.A. has been ordered extradited to the U.S. to respond to charges of money laundering.
According to the investigation conducted by the U.S. authorities, the Colombian apparently belonged to the organization of Manuel Madero Luzardo alias “El Pato,” who allegedly laundered more than $6.5 million through financial transactions from the U.S. to Colombia.
Apparently Juliana Rubio used her position as a stock broker to carry out the fraudulent operations totaling more than $1.5 million in money from drug related activities in Mexico and the U.S.
The Supreme Court rejected the arguments presented by the defense which advanced that she had committed the crimes in Colombia and therefore should serve her prison sentence here. The Appeals Court also rejected the argument and found that she committed crimes in the two countries and so could be extradited.
Rubio was seized by Colombia’s technical investigations body (CTI) last January together with seven other gang members including the head of the organization El Pato.
The bust followed an operation during which undercover agents posed as members of the FARC and paramilitary groups interested in sending money to Colombia. In total the authorities carried out 36 controlled deliveries of money in order to identify the members of the criminal gang who had reportedly been laundering money for criminals for almost 20 years.
Evidently El Pato, currently awaiting conviction in a U.S. jail, charged between 7 and 16 percent commission for his “financial services” and the money was used in bogus investments in companies related to tenders for public works in towns in the south of the country. Business links were uncovered with local authorites in the Nariño, Putumayo, Caqueta and Huila regions, most of those involved in the transactions however, are dead.
Stanford S.A., the brokerage firm where Rubio Isaza worked went into liquidation in 2009 when the owner and president Allen Stanford was convicted of defrauding more than 30,000 investors of over $7 billion.