Opinion ID: 786186
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Seizure of the Prudential Account

Text: 4 On March 23, 1999, the United States commenced this in rem forfeiture action against the $1.1 million contents of Ms. Collazos's Prudential Account on the grounds that the funds were the proceeds of illegal narcotics activity, see 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6), or were property involved in, or traceable to property involved in, a violation of the money-laundering statutes, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 981(a)(1)(A), 1956(a). 5 In its complaint, the government detailed events leading to the initial seizure of the defendant Prudential Account on June 10, 1996. The previous month, on May 1, 1996, Texas state authorities had searched the Houston office of UFF Exchange and Giros Inc. (UFF), a money-remitting business owned on paper by Alba Marina Arias but owned in fact by Stella Collazos, who supervised its operation from her home in Cali, Colombia. 1 Papers seized pursuant to the Texas search revealed that UFF routinely deposited money in Houston bank accounts on behalf of fictitious individuals and then wired those funds to nominee or fictitious accounts at BankAtlantic in Miami, Florida. In the sixteen months between January 1995 and April 1996, UFF wire transferred approximately $4.5 million, or about 95% of its total wire volume, from such Texas bank accounts to BankAtlantic. Mindful that such a pattern of money laundering is frequently employed by drug traffickers, Texas authorities had previously analyzed some of the actual currency deposited by UFF and obtained positive test results for cocaine. 6 In the weeks immediately following execution of the search warrant, a federal court-ordered wiretap intercepted numerous telephonic and facsimile communications between Ms. Collazos and Blanca Piedad Ortiz, a BankAtlantic manager who was subsequently convicted for her role in the laundering scheme, about the need to change names on various accounts listed to fictitious owners. In one such conversation, Ms. Collazos and Ms. Ortiz spoke about the need to move funds from certain nominee accounts to a BankAtlantic account in the name of Javier Rojas. They further discussed the need to dissociate Ms. Collazos's husband, Victor, from the nominee accounts. 7 Soon thereafter, on May 31, 1996, arrangements were made through the London office of Prudential Securities to open an account in Ms. Collazos's name in New York. That same day, Alba Marina Arias instructed Ms. Ortiz to wire $650,000 from BankAtlantic accounts in the names of Javier Rojas and Victor Collazos to Ms. Collazos's new Prudential Account. Over the next week, an additional $450,000 was transferred to the Prudential Account from bank accounts linked to another money-remitting business owned and operated by Ms. Collazos, Stella Giros Al Minuto (Stella Giros). Wire transfers showed that Stella Giros, like UFF, had wired millions of dollars to nominee accounts at Bank Atlantic in 1995-96. 8 Within days of these transfers, on June 5, 1996, federal authorities concluded a year-long investigation into money laundering out of BankAtlantic accounts by arresting Ms. Ortiz and freezing 1100 BankAtlantic accounts supervised by her. See generally Coronado v. BankAtlantic Bancorp., Inc., 222 F.3d 1315, 1317-18 (11th Cir.2000) (detailing history of the investigation). On June 10, 1996, the New York City Criminal Court issued a warrant for the seizure of Ms. Collazos's Prudential Account. By order dated September 24, 1996, the city court directed that the $1.1 million contents of the Prudential Account be turned over to the United States Customs Service for forfeiture. Ms. Collazos was notified of this fact by letter dated October 23, 1996, and on December 12, 1996, she filed a cash bond and requested that the case be referred for judicial forfeiture. See 19 U.S.C. § 1608; 19 C.F.R. § 162.47; 21 C.F.R. § 1316.76. 9