A former top financial official at the Drug Enforcement Administration is facing charges for allegedly working with a notorious Mexican drug cartel via the laundering of millions of dollars, say prosecutors in Manhattan. According to a newly unsealed indictment, Paul Campo spent about 25 years at the DEA, ultimately becoming its deputy chief of financial operations before retiring in 2016, per the New York Times. Prosecutors allege that Campo converted roughly $750,000 in cartel cash into cryptocurrency and agreed to launder a total of up to $12 million.
Campo is also accused of facilitating a payment tied to 220 kilograms of cocaine that had reportedly arrived in the US. Campo has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, as well as a slew of other conspiracy charges tied to distributing narcotics, providing material support to a terror group, and committing money laundering. An alleged associate, Robert Sensi, has also been charged. The cartel involved, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, has been deemed a foreign terror organization by the State Department and is known for maintaining its drug trade through violence and bribes.
Media reports stretching back years on the topic of drug dealers and money laundering cite Campo as a DEA source, with him telling Bloomberg in 2010 that, for the two decades prior to that, Latin American drug traffickers had traditionally laundered their money via US banks. A 2023 Tablet article also described the post-retirement company that Campo founded, Global Financial Consultants, as focusing on "anti-money-laundering securities." Efforts to reach Campo for comment weren't successful.
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