Crime
Ten-year sentence for man who sold more than 400 pounds of ecstasy
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
October 30, 2009
A Maryland man who distributed more than 400 pounds of Ecstasy after exchanging cocaine for the drug in Canada was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday.
From September 2006 through August 2007, 33-year-old Bum Gu Kim and other members of his ring would buy cocaine from a source in Arizona and drive it up to Buffalo, N.Y., where they crossed the border into Canada, Kim admitted. While in Canada, they would exchange the cocaine for Ecstasy and bring it back to Maryland, where they sold it wholesale to area drug dealers.
The cocaine was allegedly purchased from Leonardo Aldana, an Arizona man who is currently awaiting sentencing after being convicted of distributing cocaine and methamphetamine.
After listening to a phone conversation between Kim and a co-conspirator in June 2007, federal agents followed Kim to a parking lot near Arundel Mills Mall, where they watched him sell drugs to another person, court documents said. When agents attempted to pull the customer over, the customer fled and tossed 4,800 Ecstasy pills out his window.
When the pills were tested in a federal lab, authorities say they found MDMA -- the chemical compound in Ecstasy -- and methamphetamine, more commonly known as speed.
Prosecutors said they believed Kim distributed more than 400 pounds of Ecstasy because of the number of deals they overheard him arranging from taps on his cell phone.
Kim was eventually arrested after the Internal Revenue Service linked him to the money-laundering scheme, court documents said. Kim would take the cash proceeds of from selling the Ecstasy and use it to pay off credit advances taken out at casinos in Buffalo and Ontario, Canada.
He pleaded guilty to the drug distribution charge and money laundering in October 2008, court records show, nearly a year after federal authorities brought his drug-trafficking scheme to a halt.
"Money laundering is not a victimless crime, said IRS Special Agent C. Andre Martin. "The underground, untaxed economy harms the nation's economic strength."
