MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan national admits to scheme to circumvent US sanctions linked to Venezuela

Irazmar Carbajal de Jesús agreed to transfer approximately $99,500, delivered in cash in the Dominican Republic, to a bank account in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

A 60-year-old Uruguayan citizen pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business in order to circumvent American sanctions linked to Venezuelan government officials, the Department of Justice announced on March 25.

Irazmar Carbajal de Jesús agreed to transfer approximately $99,500, delivered in cash in the Dominican Republic, to a bank account in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Undercover agents informed Carbajal's partner that the funds belonged to a sanctioned person from the Venezuelan government who needed help moving them into the U.S. financial system.

“This defendant agreed to move money tied to a sanctioned Venezuelan official into the United States, using coded language, fake invoices, and layered transactions to try to hide what was really happening,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.

According to court documents, Carbajal and his partner charged a 20% commission for the service, which included creating fraudulent invoices to justify the transactions to banking institutions and spreading the funds across multiple accounts. To conceal the scheme, Carbajal referred to the money in coded language, describing it as “a boy who needs to be taken to school.”

The investigation was conducted by the FBI's International Corruption Unit in Miami. Carbajal and his partner, Arick Komarczyk, had been under FBI surveillance since 2019, when suspicions arose about bank accounts allegedly opened for members of Nicolás Maduro's family, according to previous reports by Infobae and Telemundo. Komarczyk has not been located; the FBI believes he is in Venezuela.

Carbajal, who lived in Santo Domingo before his arrest, was deported to the United States on October 2, 2025, after being detained while traveling from Uruguay to the Dominican Republic. He was a partner in several companies there, including Alfa Marine Star, Alfa Energy, and Trity RD, according to Dominican commercial records. He originally lived in Baltasar Brum, a town in the department of Artigas in northern Uruguay.

Carbajal is scheduled to be sentenced on June 12 and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The case was prosecuted by the Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.