The DEA gave $200,000 to a money launderer called “the Englishman.” He stole it

A man who oversaw a scheme to launder millions of dollars in U.S. drug money to drug organizations was sentenced to seven years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Daniel Shaun Zilke, who went by the nickname “the Englishman,” was also fined $50,000 and ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Zilke, 49, was arrested in May last year and pleaded guilty months later to conspiracy to aid drug distribution, money laundering and obstructing an official government proceeding for theft and attempting to investigate the theft of $150,000 in undercover funds from the DEA to cover up. He was sentenced on November 4.

Federal authorities accused Zilke of laundering money on behalf of drug cartels for five years beginning in 2015. The case against Zilke and his associates began that year when an undercover DEA agent posing as a money launderer contacted Zilke.

As part of a guilty plea, federal officials said, Zilke admitted that he told the undercover agent that he had a client in Europe who needed hundreds of millions of dollars to move to Mexico and that he could use the bank account of a Dallas charity to launder money. the money.

Prosecutors said the undercover agent helped Zilke move that money by allowing him to use bank accounts tied to companies that often handle large sums of money.

They alleged that Zilke and his associates also arranged numerous cash withdrawals from drug traffickers across the country and deposited them into various bank accounts, including some controlled by at least two other suspects in the case. The suspects were identified as Jeffrey Mark Thompson, 63, of Dallas and Gustavo Adolfo Aldana-Martinez, 58, of Pico Rivera, California. Both men have been convicted in the case.

Zilke and the two men each earned a commission that was a percentage of the amount laundered through their respective accounts, according to court documents. The prosecutor does not want to say exactly how much that percentage is.

At some point during the investigation, federal officials said, Zilke offered to cooperate and expose the money laundering organization. Investigators gave him $200,000 to give to Thompson.

The intent was to have Thompson transfer the money through his bank accounts and ultimately send the money back to the DEA’s undercover accounts, federal prosecutors said in a written statement.

“However, approximately two weeks after the cash delivery, Zilke returned to Thompson’s residence and withdrew $150,000 without notifying DEA agents,” the statement said. “After this theft of public funds, he repeatedly lied to officers about the money and made excuses as to why it took so long to receive wire transfers for the full $200,000.”

Thompson, who is awaiting sentencing, pleaded guilty in November 2023 to conspiracy to aid drug distribution, money laundering and concealing the laundering of money from drug trafficking proceeds.

Aldana-Martinez, who has already been convicted of similar charges, is serving a four-year prison sentence.