Fifty-six-year-old Seivright Donald Afflick was sentenced on Wednesday, May 29, in Boston, USA, for laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug trafficking proceeds from Colombian cartels through banking systems around the world.

Afflick was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns to 37 months in prison.

He will be subject to deportation proceedings upon completion of the imposed sentence.

In February 2024, Afflick pleaded guilty to a money laundering conspiracy and conducting substantive money laundering transactions.

Beginning in 2016 and continuing until 2022, an investigation into a sophisticated money laundering organization based primarily in Barranquilla, Colombia, was conducted.

Details of the case

During an extensive five-year investigation, the organization allegedly laundered over US$6 million in drug proceeds through intermediary banks in the United States, including banks in Massachusetts, as well as additional proceeds through banks in the Caribbean and Europe by use of the Colombian Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE), a common method of trade-based money laundering used to repatriate the proceeds of drug trafficking to Colombia. 

An undercover agent infiltrated the organization by portraying himself as an international money launderer able to pick up bulk cash throughout the world, launder the proceeds through his United States-based accounts, and send the money to Colombia through the BMPE.

Throughout the course of the investigation, members of the money laundering organization would contact the undercover and arrange meetings for the undercover and the undercover’s purported associates to collect bulk cash throughout the world. 

Individuals, such as Afflick, performed the role of money courier. Afflick delivered bulk cash on two occasions in Jamaica. That cash was then deposited into the undercover bank account in Massachusetts and subsequently wired to accounts and repatriated back to drug traffickers in Colombia. 

Over the course of the conspiracy, Afflick was responsible for the laundering of approximately $670,000 in drug proceeds. Afflick was charged in a 50-count indictment along with 19 other individuals in March 2022. 

He is the sixth defendant to be sentenced in the case. Three other defendants have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.