Rocklin business owners accused of money laundering for drug dealer in undercover sting
A federal grand jury has indicted two Placer County men running a Rocklin-based business who are accused of agreeing to launder money for an interstate drug dealer who was an undercover investigator, federal prosecutors said.
Daniel Stewart, 56, of Lincoln and Luke Burroughs, 56, of Rocklin were indicted Thursday on charges of money laundering and money laundering conspiracy, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.
The prosecutors said Stewart and Burroughs own and operate Western Baler and Conveyor, a company that sells and services equipment for waste management facilities.
Stewart and Burroughs created a scheme to disguise their personal expenses as business expenses, which included writing company checks to pay for more than $350,000-worth of home renovations, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The prosecutors said the defendants’ scheme did not generate enough expenses to offset all the company’s tax liability.
In early 2019, after complaining about paying $300,000 to the IRS, Stewart and Burroughs agreed to help launder money for a person they believed was an interstate drug dealer, according to the prosecutors.
From March 2019 through October 2020, Stewart and Burroughs wrote company checks of more than $1 million to help the drug dealer to hide his drug money, prosecutors said. The man posing as the drug dealer was actually an undercover law enforcement officer.
If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine, prosecutors said.
This case is the result of an investigation by the IRS and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Lee is prosecuting the case.
