Angelica Mendoza Rubio, a 49-year-old certified accountant from Mexico, has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for her role in an international money laundering operation. The sentencing was announced by Chadwick M. Elgersma, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin.
Mendoza Rubio pleaded guilty on May 9, 2025, to conspiring to commit concealment money laundering. According to court documents, she operated out of Mexico between December 2020 and April 2021 and worked with a network of money launderers based in the United States. The group helped criminal clients move funds out of the U.S. by converting bulk cash into Bitcoin. The scheme involved shell companies, nominee account holders, funnel accounts, and layered transactions to hide the origins and ownership of the funds.
During this period, Mendoza Rubio and others laundered approximately $240,000 generated from a wire fraud scheme that targeted a business in the Western District of Wisconsin. Judge Williams M. Conley found that over five months Mendoza Rubio had assisted in laundering $5.1 million from criminal activity.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Conley cited Mendoza Rubio’s expertise as an accountant and her key role in orchestrating complex financial transactions as factors contributing to the length of her sentence.
Acting U.S. Attorney Elgersma stated: “Sophisticated money launderers like Mendoza Rubio help facilitate international criminal activity. I commend the law enforcement agents who worked to bring her to justice.”
The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation with support from the Diplomatic Security Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Meredith P. Duchemin and Louis Glinzak prosecuted the case.
