Feds: Horse operation was a front for cartel money laundering; Okla. ranch, NM track raided

In the stables at a prominent quarter horse track in New Mexico, workers quietly nicknamed Jose Trevino Morales’s stables as the “Zetas’ stables” and say they often saw people show up with bags of cash to buy the horses. On Tuesday, authorities raided those stables and a horse ranch in Oklahoma accusing Trevino and others of running a sophisticated money-laundering operation connected to one of Mexico’s most powerful and ruthless drug cartels. Federal authorities accuse Trevino’s older brother, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, a key figure in the Zetas drug operation, of setting up the horse operation that the younger brother ran from the sprawling ranch near Lexington, Okla., south of Oklahoma City. Millions of dollars went through the operation, which bought, trained, bred and raced quarter horses throughout the southwest United States, including the famed Ruidoso Downs track in New Mexico. Jose Trevino, his wife and five others were arrested. Seven others, including another Trevino brother, were charged but remain at large. “This case is a prime example of the ability of Mexican drug cartels to establish footholds in legitimate U.S. industries and highlights the serious threat money laundering causes to our financial system,” said Richard Weber, the chief of the IRS’ criminal investigation unit...more