https://scdailygazette.com/2025/04/24/sc-men-indicted-in-30m-money-laundering-scheme-tied-to-mexican-drug-traffickers/

Three men are facing criminal charges related to one of the largest international, drug-related money laundering operations South Carolina has ever seen, according to federal prosecutors.

A federal grand jury indicted Nasir Ullah, 28, and Naim Ullah, 32, both of Sumter, as well as Puquan Huang, 49, of Burford, Georgia, acting U.S. Attorney Brook Andrews announced Thursday. Each faces a charge of conspiracy to launder money, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Lawyers for the men did not respond to messages from the SC Daily Gazette.

The men stand accused of laundering more than $30 million in illegal drug proceeds, taking cash from known drug sales associated with two major Mexican cartels and using it to purchase and ship electronics to Hong Kong, China and the United Arab Emirates to be sold for a profit.

“Money laundering is the backbone of criminal enterprise,” Andrews said. “It enables drug trafficking organizations to purchase and distribute fentanyl and other drugs to devastating effect. When we target those who launder drug money, we strike at the very heart of these operations.”

Law enforcement alleges the men collected money from various locations in York, Richland, Sumter and Charleston counties, as well as from other states across the Southeast. They stored the cash at a pair of business properties in Sumter.

Police and federal agents raided those businesses in late January, as well as two homes, arresting Nasir Ullah, Naim Ullah and one other man in Sumter, multiple television news stations reported.

They seized an estimated $230,000 in cash, three vehicles, 11 guns and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry in the raids.

Court documents also reference hundreds of millions of dollars seized during multiple traffic stops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina between July 2021 and November 2024.

Police traced the money to the sale of fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana and heroin.

Two milligrams of fentanyl, which is roughly the size of the tip of a sharpened pencil, is a lethal dose, said Mike Tooley, an assistant special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

By comparison, just one of the seizures involving $177,000 of cash would be enough to purchase seven kilograms of powdered fentanyl. That amount of fentanyl could kill 3.5 million people, or more than half the population of South Carolina.

“We are using every authority and resource available to keep these dangerous networks, these criminals and the poison they distribute off of our streets, out of our community and out of our country,” Tooley said.