A Venezuelan national has been criminally charged in the Eastern District of Virginia with an alleged conspiracy to launder roughly a billion dollars through a network of banks, crypto accounts, private wallets, and shell companies. The complaint names 59-year-old Jorge Figueira and outlines a pattern of converting illicit funds into cryptocurrency, routing them through liquidity providers, and returning dollars to bank accounts to obscure their origin. Federal prosecutors say the operation moved funds to and from the United States and to high-risk jurisdictions overseas.

A criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of Virginia accuses Jorge Figueira, 59, of participating in a broad scheme to launder money using both traditional banking and cryptocurrency channels. Prosecutors allege the network made use of multiple bank accounts, cryptocurrency exchange accounts, private wallets, and shell companies to disguise the flow of funds. Authorities describe the activity as voluminous and transnational.

The complaint traces a sequence of steps: converting cash or bank transfers into cryptocurrency, directing those digital assets to a chain of wallets, and then using liquidity providers to turn crypto back into dollars. Once converted, the dollars allegedly moved into Figueira’s bank accounts and onward to intended recipients, masking the true origin of the money. Prosecutors say these maneuvers were deliberate efforts to frustrate law enforcement and hide criminal proceeds.

<p““This case involves the alleged laundering approximately a billion dollars – a scale of criminal conduct that poses a profound threat to financial systems and public safety,” said Lindsey Halligan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “Money laundering at this level enables transnational criminal organizations to operate, expand, and inflict real-world harm. Those who move illicit funds in the billions should expect to be identified, disrupted, and held fully accountable under federal law.”

According to the complaint, more than a billion dollars passed through the identified cryptocurrency wallet and assorted financial accounts tied to the scheme. Investigators say most inbound transfers into Figueira’s accounts originated from cryptocurrency trading platforms, signaling extensive use of exchanges to funnel crime proceeds. Outbound payments, meanwhile, were distributed to a mix of businesses and individuals both inside the United States and abroad.

Officials flagged multiple destination jurisdictions, including Colombia, China, Panamá, and Mexico, as recipients of outbound funds linked to the alleged laundering. The complaint points to those countries as part of a broader distribution pattern that crossed borders and leveraged weak points in international financial oversight. Prosecutors view the geographic spread as evidence of an operation structured to take advantage of regulatory gaps.

Law enforcement sources say the use of private wallets and shell companies helped obscure transactional trails and made it harder to trace the movement of funds back to their criminal sources. By interposing liquidity providers and seemingly legitimate businesses, the scheme allegedly turned illicit funds into the appearance of lawful revenue. That layering is central to how the complaint describes the defendant’s alleged concealment tactics.

The legal charge in the complaint is conspiracy to launder money, a federal offense that carries serious penalties when proven. If convicted, Figueira faces up to 20 years in prison. A federal district court judge will later determine any specific sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Prosecutors have pointed to the scale of the alleged activity as a threat not only to banks and exchanges but also to public safety, arguing that massive laundering supports wider criminal networks. Those kinds of enterprise-level operations can fund transnational trafficking, fraud rings, and other illegal ventures, officials say. The targeting of large-scale financial flows is central to the government’s effort to disrupt those networks.

Investigations into complex crypto-related laundering often depend on reciprocal work with private exchanges, tracing blockchain transactions, and traditional banking subpoenas to follow dollars and tokens across systems. The complaint suggests a hybrid approach was used here, blending blockchain analytics with classic financial investigation techniques to map the alleged scheme. That combination reflects how investigators are adapting to modern money movement methods.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Rosenberg is prosecuting the case.