Source: Office of United States Attorneys
CHICAGO — A money launderer for a Chicago-based drug trafficking organization has been sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison.
COSME CHACON, 55, pleaded guilty in 2023 to a money laundering conspiracy charge. U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr. imposed a 100-month prison sentence during a hearing on Tuesday in federal court in Chicago.
Chacon was among four defendants indicted in Chicago in 2007. The defendants participated in a drug trafficking organization that transported heroin to Chicago from New York, Florida, and Texas. After the drugs were sold in the Chicago area, Chacon laundered the illicit proceeds through wire transfers to Colombia and other overseas locations. Chacon’s three co-defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to federal prison terms of 16 years, 12 years, and one year.
Chacon was free on bond in 2009 when he failed to appear for status hearings in the weeks leading up to his scheduled trial. Chacon remained a fugitive until 2022, when he was arrested in Panama and returned to the United States.
The sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Sean Fitzgerald, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of Homeland Security Investigations, and Ramsey E. Covington, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation Chicago Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian F. Williamson represented the government.
Valuable assistance in securing Chacon’s arrest and return to the U.S. was provided by IRS Criminal Investigation Panama City, the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.
This case was part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles drug traffickers, money launderers, and other alleged criminal offenders that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against alleged criminal networks.