‘Biggest cocaine trafficker in Delaware’ sentenced to 45 years in prison

A Delaware decide has sentenced Omar Morales Colon to jail for 45 years for conspiracy to commit cash laundering, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and varied different drug and cash laundering offenses.

Court docket paperwork referred to Colon, 45, of Bear, Delaware, because the “largest cocaine trafficker” within the state. He was sentenced Monday by Third Circuit Decide Stephanos Bibas.

Between 2009 and 2017, Colon and his spouse, Shakira Martinez, 44, laundered over $1 million in drug cash by buying actual property in Delaware and Pennsylvania utilizing their firm, Zemi Property Administration. They deposited drug cash into a number of financial institution accounts and requested family and friends members to do the identical. Colon and Martinez then used these funds to purchase cashier’s checks that funded the property purchases.

One of many conspirators within the cash laundering scheme included Colon’s daughter, Karina Colon. Whereas she was a young person, she would deposit massive quantities of money into her financial institution accounts and purchase cashier’s checks. Whereas she was in faculty, she bought actual property in her identify utilizing laundered funds.

At one among Colon’s properties in Wilmington, he offered his cocaine suppliers a “secure storage” the place they may take away cocaine from oxygen tanks and retailer money. Colon additionally rented storage models in relations’ names, and used them to retailer marijuana, money, and a kilogram press used for processing cocaine.