Acclaimed DEA agent now looms as black eye
MIAMI — A U.S. federal narcotics agent known for his expensive tastes and high-profile drug seizures has been implicated in a multimillion-dollar moneylaundering conspiracy that involved the very cartel criminals he was charged with fighting in Colombia.
A once standout Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Jose Irizarry, is accused of conspiring with a longtime DEA informant to launder more than $7 million in illicit drug proceeds, sometimes using an underground network known as the black-market peso exchange, according to five current and former law enforcement officials.
The officials described the case as one of the biggest black eyes in the history of the DEA, an agency that has seen repeated scandals in recent years, and one they fear could have compromised undercover operations in the U.S. and South America.
The conspiracy not only allegedly enriched Irizarry but is believed to have benefited one of South America’s top money launderers, who is a relative of Irizarry’s Colombian wife, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The allegations have sent shockwaves through the DEA and drawn new scrutiny to the agency’s Colombia field office, a critical outpost that has been steeped in turmoil in recent years. The division has seen internal strife and turnover in leadership even as it grapples with record-high levels of cocaine production.
Some of the details emerged in a federal case in Tampa, Florida, in which a former DEA informant, Gustavo Yabrudi, a dual VenezuelanAmerican citizen, recently pleaded guilty to money laundering. That case refers to an unnamed “co-conspirator 3” — a suspect who is, in fact, Irizarry, the five officials said.
It is unknown where the 44-year-old Irizarry is living, or whether he has been charged in the ongoing criminal probe.
A DEA spokeswoman said Irizarry resigned from the agency after he was recalled from Colombia to Washington in 2017, but she declined further comment.
When word of the scandal reached Washington that year, the FBI and Justice Department dispatched investigators to Colombia to conduct criminal and internal inquiries, fearing it could backfire on the DEA’S ability to keep the trust of sources in the criminal underworld, officials said.
The case raises new questions about the DEA’S screening practices in its hiring of special agents. Irizarry was hired by the DEA despite indications he showed signs of deception in a polygraph exam he took upon admission, three of the law enforcement officials said.
There were other red flags. In 2010, Irizarry declared bankruptcy with debts of almost $500,000, but he was nevertheless permitted to handle financial transactions in his role at the DEA.
Before he was exposed, Irizarry had been a model agent, the law enforcement officials said, winning praise from his supervisors. Based out of Miami, he won special permission to set up an undercover operation to send money and ship contraband merchandise to Colombia on behalf of suspected drug traffickers using front companies, shell bank accounts and couriers.
His investigations led to scores of drug arrests, earning him an early career transfer to a coveted foreign posting in the Colombian resort city of Cartagena, where his successes continued.
“He was the superstar everyone wanted to be,” one former law enforcement official said.
But Irizarry and Yabrudi, his long-time informant, allegedly opened a bank account in which they directed deposits from criminal contacts looking to repatriate drug proceeds to Colombia, the officials said. Sometimes the funds were used to purchase electronics, textiles and other goods that were exported to Colombia for resale in pesos, which were used to pay traffickers.
Prosecutors allege that $7 million flowed through a single account over almost six years. Yabrudi, in pleading guilty, admitted he withdrew cash from the account and gave payments to his unnamed DEA coconspirator — Irizarry, the officials said — and accounts he controlled.
Yabrudi’s lawyer, Leonardo Concepcion, declined to comment but described the case as “involving serious corruption by a DEA agent.”
Irizarry also adopted the ostentatious tastes of the drug traffickers, buying a home and a Land Rover in Cartagena. He traveled first-class to Europe sporting Louis Vuitton luggage and a gold Hublot watch, one official said.
He hosted raucous yacht parties with bikiniclad prostitutes, which fellow agents and at least one supervisor attended against DEA policy, according to an official. The DEA banned such gatherings in the wake of the 2015 “sex parties” scandal in Colombia that prompted the retirement of the DEA’S administrator at the time.
Investigators are also examining whether Irizarry’s marriage into the mafia was driving his off-the-chart arrest and seizure numbers, the law enforcement officials said. His second wife, Nathalia Gomez, is related to Diego Marin, who U.S. and Colombian officials describe as one of the top money-laundering suspects in the country over the past decade.
Marin was arrested in 1993 for allegedly hiding dope money for the Cali cartel in Colombia-bound home appliances. But he was never charged and has eluded prosecution by leveraging relationships built over decades as an informant to U.S. law enforcement agencies, the officials said.
Current and former U.S. law enforcement officials now suspect Irizarry was using his badge to turn in Marin’s rivals.