Mexico Arrests 'King Midas'

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's alleged money launderer is in police custody
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 28, 2016 6:31 AM CDT
Mexico Arrests 'King Midas'
This photo released by Mexico's Federal Police shows a man it identifies as Juan Manuel Alvarez, one of the alleged top money-launderers for drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in an unknown location   (Mexico's Federal Police, or SEGOB, via AP)

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman needed someone to scrub all of his dirty drug money, and Mexican police say they arrested that man, known as "King Midas," while he was vacationing, the BBC reports. "Groups of elite federal police and the Mexican army arrested Juan Manuel Alvarez Inzunza, nicknamed 'El Rey Midas' ('King Midas'), in Oaxaca," a police statement read, per the AFP. The announcement was made Sunday but the date of the arrest was not given.

Inzunza, 34, is suspected of laundering between $300 million to $400 million per year, for an estimated total of more than $4 billion over 10 years' time, through various currency exchange centers and other companies for Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel. Inzunza's "transactions" were said to take place mostly in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Jalisco, but also in Tijuana, the US, Panama, and Colombia, Courthouse News Service reports. He's likely to be extradited to the US, as is Guzman. (More Mexico stories.)

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