Money Launderer Flips, Swipes $150K From DEA

A man accused of laundering millions of dollars for drug traffickers flipped to informant, only to steal $150,000 from the Drug Enforcement Administration, federal prosecutors say. Known as "The Englishman," Daniel Shaun Zilke, 49, of Mexico City, allegedly oversaw money laundering operations for drug cartels across the US from 2015 to 2020. An undercover DEA agent was posing as a money launderer in 2015 when he made contact with Zilke, who was looking to move hundreds of millions of dollars from Europe to Mexico. While assisting in that move, the undercover agent learned Zilke and two associates laundered money through various bank accounts, including one purportedly belonging to a charity, earning a percentage of the amount moved, per the Los Angeles Times.

In 2019, Zilke reached out to the DEA, offering to expose the scheme, per the Sacramento Bee. He was then given $200,000 in DEA funds, which was to be forwarded to an associate known as "The Cowboy"—Jeffrey Mark Thompson of Dallas, Texas—moved through the accounts, then returned to the DEA. "However, approximately two weeks after the cash delivery, Zilke returned to Thompson's residence and took back $150,000 without telling the DEA agents" prosecutors say, per the Times. "After this theft of government funds, he repeatedly lied to the agents about the money and made excuses for why it was taking so long to receive the wire transfers for the full $200,000."

Zilke pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to aid drug distribution and conspiracy to launder money last December and was handed seven years and three months in prison at his Nov. 4 sentencing in Los Angeles. He was also ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to the DEA on top of a $50,000 fine. Thompson, 63, who oversaw the purported charity Peace Through Water Foundation, is still awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiracy to aid and abet drug distribution, money laundering, and concealment money laundering of drug trafficking proceeds. Another Zilke associate, Gustavo Adolfo Aldana-Martinez, 58, of Pico Rivera, California, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to launder money in December 2021 and sentenced to four years in prison in July, per CBS News. (More money laundering stories.)