A downtown Los Angeles company and two executives are facing multi-million-dollar fines and prison time after being convicted of money laundering and evading customs duties and taxes.
C’est Toi Jeans Inc., based in the Fashion District downtown, “avoid[ed] the payment of more than $8 million in customs duties on imported clothing” and “laundered money and failed to report on tax returns more than $17 million derived from cash transactions,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release on Tuesday announcing the sentences.
At least some of those cash transactions involved “bulk cash that was derived from drug trafficking as payment for customer invoices,” prosecutors added…