Former Drug Enforcement Administration official Paul Campo has been charged with planning to launder $12 million for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Campo was also charged with laundering $750,000 for JNGC using cryptocurrency. The Department of Justice announced the indictment on Friday, also naming associate Robert Sensi.
Campo worked for the DEA for 25 years, retiring in 2016 as deputy chief of the Office of Financial Operations. If convicted on the drug charges, Campo could face life in prison.
DEA Administrator Terrance Cole, who took office in July after being Gov. Glenn Youngkin‘s (R-VA) secretary of public safety, slammed Campo for his alleged corruption.
“The indictment of former Special Agent Paul Campo sends a powerful message: those who betray the public trust—past or present—will be held to account to the fullest extent of the law,” Cole said in a statement.
“The alleged conduct occurred after he left DEA and was unrelated to his official duties here, but any former agent who chooses to engage in criminal activity dishonors the men and women who serve with integrity and undermines the public’s confidence in law enforcement,” he added.
Cole said that Campo’s status as a former official does not prevent him from being prosecuted.
“We will not look the other way simply because someone once wore this badge. There is no tolerance and no excuse for this kind of betrayal,” he concluded.
Sensi advised a confidential source in the indictment that Campo could use his former position to provide “sensitive DEA information about sources and investigations.”
The indictment said Campo and Sensi then began meeting with the source routinely, agreed to launder money for the source, and discussed using cryptocurrency and real estate to do so. They also discussed how to procure weapons, such as AR-15 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, for the cartel.
In one meeting, the source explained to Campo that the cartel used drones to deliver explosives to targets.
“What we do with the drones, we put explosives, and we just send it over there, boom,” they said.
Sensi, when asked about how many explosives the drones could carry, said it was enough to “blow up the whole f—— . . . I don’t want to say.”
The 61-year-old Campo and 75-year-old Sensi agreed to launder the $12 million, the $750,000, and paid for 220 kilograms of cocaine to facilitate drug trafficking from which the pair would profit.
Campo and Sensi were charged with one count of conspiring to commit narcoterrorism; one count of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine; one count of conspiring to provide material support and resources to Jalisco New Generation Cartel; and one count of conspiring to commit money laundering.
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The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, or “El Mencho,” is one of the largest cartels in Mexico and is known for using brutal tactics to intimidate locals. The State Department labeled the cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in February.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton described the cartel in the indictment as “one of the most notorious Mexican cartels that is responsible for countless deaths through violence and drug trafficking in the United States and Mexico.”