EXCLUSIVE: Miami Played Host to $350 Million Argentinian Money-Laundering Scheme, Feds Say

Rivers of money were flowing from South America into a network of obscure Miami companies run by one Paul Oswald Morani as Argentina suffered a crippling economic crisis, according to court documents. In recent years, Morani's bank accounts and seven of his corporate entities, including firms in South Florida and Delaware, received $350 million in funds — largely from Argentina, federal investigators say. The firms were held out as shipping companies involved in the international transport of commercial loads.

For an operation of such a massive scale, the businesses appeared strangely dormant, the feds claim.

The companies' Florida documents allegedly listed no wages or earnings for Morani. Customs records showed barely any import-and-export activity for his entities, and he was making no unemployment fund contributions, indicating he had no staff, investigators say. According to a criminal affidavit obtained by New Times, the feds took one look at the businesses' operations (or lack thereof) and "quickly concluded that they were all shell corporations" designed to illegally funnel money out of Argentina.

"Exhaustive records of the defendant's above-mentioned shell corporations exposed a scheme that moved over $350 million in illicit proceeds," a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigator wrote.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida on March 19 charged Morani with spearheading the money laundering conspiracy. He is accused of engaging in a large-scale illegal money-transfer operation that helped foreigners, some of whom were alleged drug traffickers, siphon cash out of Argentina and other South American nations.

The feds claim he used his profits to buy a $2.3 million condominium unit in Miami Beach. Apart from the accounts employed as wire-transfer vehicles, Morani and his partner allegedly held roughly $18 million in profits in accounts at Morgan Stanley.

Morani was arrested in Miami and has his arraignment scheduled for April 2. Alejandro Soto, his attorney, declined to comment on the details of the case when reached by New Times.

"Mr. Morani will vigorously defend against the government's allegations," Soto said in a brief statement.

The figures presented in the case against Morani indicate that he allegedly played a significant role in facilitating Argentinians' transfer of funds out of the nation during its protracted economic crisis. According to the DEA affidavit, Morani and his network of companies received more than $95 million in wire transfers from January 2018 through March 2019, primarily from Argentina. Between July 2019 and February 2021, approximately $163 million moved through four Wells Fargo bank accounts he controlled, the affidavit states.

Investigators say they've uncovered "thousands of fake invoices" used to create a veil of legitimate freight shipping activity by Morani's companies. The invoices were presented to Argentinian banks to justify the scale of the transfers from the country, where currency restrictions were in place amid a collapsing exchange rate for the Argentinian peso.

Over the last 20 years, the Argentinian currency has lost the majority of its value on foreign exchanges. The nation's economy sunk into turmoil, marred by inflation, a history of government debt defaults, and investor hesitancy.

Argentinian journalist Daniel Santoro has posited that the billions of dollars' worth of funds laundered out of Argentina, in many cases to avoid taxes, further stifled the nation's economy — as outflow of unreported money stripped the country of much-needed tax revenue.

Morani first came onto the feds' radar around February 2019 while they were investigating a Brazilian suspect who was believed to be sending the powerful narcotic fentanyl into the United States. Agents learned that the suspect was trying to buy a bulk quantity of cocaine from South Florida for importation to Europe, according to court documents. The $30,000 down-payment he sent for the coke was wired through U.S.-based Compass Forwarding, a Delaware company owned by Morani, the feds say.

Agents dug into Morani's businesses and found that he and his family owned several shell companies, including Miami-based UBS Forwarding Services and Neddick Forwarding. Another one of the firms was registered to a Palmetto Bay address. The DEA says it found that the companies' accounts had "financial activity grossly disproportionate to the companies' claimed annual revenues."

The affidavit does not make it clear what proportion of the $350 million in transfers was allegedly generated by drug trafficking or other third-party illegal activity. Morani is not accused of trafficking-related offenses in the affidavit; the charges against him are based solely on allegedly illegal money transfers.

In 2019, Bank of America closed one of the accounts controlled by Morani in light of suspicious activity, the affidavit states. Wells Fargo and Citibank subsequently shuttered his companies' accounts in 2021.

The feds say they scrubbed through Morani's cellphone records during their investigation and found conversations in which the illegal money transfers were "plainly discussed, planned, and ordered...using uncoded language." A search of Morani's family member's home further yielded a "vast amount of documentary evidence," the affidavit states.

Investigators alerted Morani's lawyer in December 2021 that Morani was under investigation for running a money laundering operation. But Morani allegedly continued to conduct illegal transfers by using a strawman to set up a Bank of America account, where more than $14 million flowed through December 2023. Agents claim they obtained recordings in which Morani "is heard instructing [his representative] to open as many businesses as possible" to continue the transfer operations.

"This evidence clearly demonstrates Morani and his co-conspirators are setting up new money-remitting businesses in the Southern District of Florida but are taking more precautions to ensure that their names are not related to any of the documents, companies, or accounts," the affidavit alleges.

The feds believe Morani, who is in his mid-50s, is living primarily in Argentina.

Over the past few years, South Florida has experienced an influx of cash from South American investors, who have sought a safe haven from political and socioeconomic turmoil in their home countries. The Miami metro area's recent real estate market boom was fueled in part by the inflow of investment. According to the Miami Association of Realtors, more than $5 billion in foreign investment flowed into South Florida real estate in 2023, with most investors hailing from Colombia, followed by Argentina.

Much of the investment influx has come from legitimate sources and business income in South America.

Still, in past reports, Santoro and other Argentinian journalists highlighted the country's historical problems with tax evasion and lack of money laundering prosecutions. Argentina has implemented tax amnesty programs to spur declaration of assets parked overseas. 

In 2019, Argentina tightened control over foreign exchange transactions, setting a limit on the amount of U.S. dollars that could be purchased monthly and "requiring exporters to repatriate their earnings within a certain time frame," according to CG Wealth. The move further splintered exchange rates and sent some Argentinians scrambling to find means of safely storing their money amid high inflation.

The country's 2023 election of President Javier Milei, who has libertarian leanings and supports a more laissez-faire economic policy, marked a shift in national policymaking that his supporters hope will stabilize the country's economy.

Editor's note 3/21/2024: This article has been updated to include comment from Morani's attorney and to reflect that Morani was taken into federal custody in Miami.