The Federal Agents on Thursday said that about $20 million found under a mattress in a Massachusetts apartment had been seized after a Brazilian man was arrested for laundering money linked to a multi-billion-dollar global fraud which is related to a massive pyramid scheme.
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| US Attorney's Office |
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the suspect, Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha flew from Brazil to the US a few days ago to
meet a person who is a cooperating witness in the pyramid scheme case. Rocha and the witness met at a restaurant in Hudson, Massachusetts. It was there that the witness was allegedly to have given Rocha a suitcase filled with $2.2 million in bills.
Federal agents trailed Rocha to an apartment complex in Westborough, Massachusetts, where he was arrested.
Later that night the agents searched the apartment and found the cash, packed inside the box spring of a mattress. NO information was given if the $2.2 million in the suitcase was part of the $20 million found in the box spring.
The suspect was charged with one count of conspiring to commit money laundering.
The police believes Rocha was acting as a courier for Carlos Wanzeler of TelexFree Inc., a Massachusetts-based Internet phone service company.
Federal authorities said TelexFree switched into a pyramid scheme that defrauded people out of around $1 billion.
Wanzeler fled to Brazil in April 2014, the U.S. Attorney's Office said, just a couple of months before he was indicted on charges with co-founder James Merrill. Rocha was in the United States to secure millions of dollars of hidden TelexFree cash and get it to Brazil by laundering the money through Hong Kong, the feds said.
Rocha faces up to 20 years in prison on the money laundering charge.
Rocha faces up to 20 years in prison on the money laundering charge.
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