Opinion ID: 76388
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mauricio Puche

Text: 24 The agents met with Mauricio on at least two visits, once on June 23 (when he counted $50,000 of the agents' cash with Orlando) and again on August 10. On the second visit, Agent Miranda complained to Mauricio about the length of time it had taken the money to arrive in some of the overseas accounts, and requested receipts so that he could show the owners of the money, who lived in Colombia, proof that he had wired the cash and not stolen it. Miranda specifically complained that they had lost two money pick-ups in New York due to the delay. 25 Mauricio places great stock in the next verbal exchange, in which Mauricio asked Miranda whether the money was for anything illegal. Miranda responded that this is just money. Mauricio claims that his reliance on Oliva's word during this conversation was enough to dispel any notion he might have had that the money came from illegal activity. He fails to acknowledge that a suspected drug trafficker would hardly admit to illegality when being questioned about it. Moreover, three transactions subsequent to that conversation should have led Mauricio to inquire why the amounts were getting larger and why Casamayor did not match with his purported social security number. Given the evidence as a whole, the jury could have found Mauricio's reliance on Oliva's assurances during this single conversation unreasonable and disingenuous. 26 In addition, Mauricio remarked that he had heard Miranda talking about tobacco, that it was illegal to import tobacco from Cuba, and that such activity would likely trigger an investigation. 4 Miranda had never mentioned tobacco to Mauricio. The jury could have easily inferred that this knowledge, in addition to other information regarding the agents' transactions, was communicated among the Puches. 27 Moreover, Mauricio never asked the agents why such large sums of cash were in such small bills. He never questioned why the agents used GEC rather than a bank to wire these large amounts of cash when the latter's charge of a flat fee for each transfer would be less costly than GEC's three percent cut. Again, he never inquired into the identities of the agents, even after receipt of the letter from the IRS regarding Leonardo. The evidence shows that Mauricio knew about Leonardo as he expressed some reservation over mention of tobacco with regard to Leonardo's business, despite the fact that Oliva previously had never mentioned tobacco to Mauricio.