Yong Ming Song, who was reportedly caught with 176.6 grams of methamphetamine or \u201cice\u201d worth $80,000, had just wired a total of $10,000 to China in two days, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.<\/p>\n
In his report, DEA special agent Daniel Holcomb stated that, based on his training and experience, Song\u2019s wire transfer activities were consistent with \u201csmurfing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smurfing, he explained, is an attempt to conduct multiple wire transfers of money under $10,000 to avoid mandatory federal currency transaction reporting requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmurfing is a common method used by drug traffickers to smuggle drug trafficking proceeds out of the United States,\u201d Holcomb said.<\/p>\n
Song was arrested last week after a police\u2019s check on him for driving without a seatbelt yielded 176.6 grams of \u201cice\u201d\u2014the second biggest haul of such illegal drugs so far in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Song, an employee of Rifu Garment Factory in San Vicente, is facing charges of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance in federal court.<\/p>\n
The defendant apparently told authorities that he just picked up the package under the bench of a bus stop\u2014as directed by his friend, a person named Chen based in China.<\/p>\n
Holcomb said that when he searched Song\u2019s wallet, he found two Western Union receipts dated Sept. 9 and 10, 2008, and several hundred dollars.<\/p>\n
Both receipts, Holcomb said, indicated that the garment worker wired $5,000 to China on each day.<\/p>\n
The defendant told authorities he sent the money to his parents-in-law in China. <\/p>\n
Song claimed he won the money in two separate days at two different poker arcades.<\/p>\n
Holcomb, however, noted that, according to the Department of Finance, the maximum payout in most poker machines on Saipan is capped at $1,000.<\/p>\n
The agent said other officers also located a small, black Chinese-English dictionary in the center console of Song\u2019s Toyota Corolla car.<\/p>\n
He said when they opened the dictionary, they noticed that the pages inside had been hollowed out in a rectangular shape equivalent to the size of the packages of \u201cice\u201d found inside a bag in the car.<\/p>\n
In addition, officers recovered a partially empty water bottle in the center console.<\/p>\n
Holcomb said \u201cice\u201d traffickers frequently carry partially empty water bottles near their drugs, so they can dump the drugs inside the water bottle before law enforcers could discover it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yong Ming Song, who was reportedly caught with 176.6 grams of methamphetamine or \u201cice\u201d worth $80,000, had just wired a total of $10,000 to China in two days, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}