The owner and a sales manager of a North Carolina car dealership have confessed to participating in a complex money laundering scheme.
John Harvey Martin, the owner of iNetwork Auto Group in Charlotte, and his sales manager Vincent Emmanuel Jefferson Jr., have admitted their guilt in a money laundering conspiracy.
According to filed court documents and court proceedings, Martin was the owner of iNetwork Auto Group Inc. (iNetwork), a car dealership located in Charlotte. Martin also owned and operated The Scorpio nightclub, also located in Charlotte.
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Martin employed Jefferson as a sales manager for iNetwork.
Court documents show that, from July 2017, through January 2021, Martin and Jefferson engaged in a money laundering scheme by selling approximately 20 luxury vehicles to G.D., an individual who the defendants knew was a drug dealer or of whom they were willfully blind to that fact.
The defendants received cash payments from G.D., also knowing or being willfully blind to the fact that the cash represented property derived from some form of criminal activity. Jefferson and Martin further facilitated the fraud by allowing G.D. to buy the vehicles using the names of straw purchasers in order to conceal G.D.’s identity and hide the illicit source of the cash G.D. was using to pay for the vehicles.
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To further the conspiracy, Martin and Jefferson at times forged the signatures of straw purchasers on sales, registration, and title paperwork for the vehicles sold to G.D., and frequently notarized the paperwork knowing that the straw purchasers were not the true purchasers of the vehicles. Court records show that Martin and Jefferson received from G.D. cash payments for the vehicles totaling over $520,000.
According to court documents, Martin used at least $200,000 in cash that he received from G.D. to pay for renovations to a building adjacent to iNetwork. Martin also solicited and received at least $100,000 in cash from G.D. to buy The Scorpio nightclub, while concealing G.D.’s ownership interest in The Scorpio.
As Martin admitted in court, he subsequently bought out G.D.’s ownership interest in The Scorpio for at least $100,000 in cash. G.D. gave that money to another individual, identified in court documents as J.M., who then attempted to drive the money to G.D.’s drug trafficking source of supply in California.
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After law enforcement seized the money from J.M., J.M. – at G.D.’s direction – submitted a fraudulent claim to the United States government under penalty of perjury falsely representing that J.M. was the lawful owner of the money and that he legally obtained the money from the sale of The Scorpio. Court documents show that Martin provided fraudulent documentation and made false representations in support of J.M.’s false and fraudulent claim.
Martin and Jefferson have been released on bond. The money laundering conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set.
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