A federal grand jury in Michigan has charged an Orange County man tied to Huntington Beach with money laundering and trying to illegally sell more than 100 kilograms of high-quality marijuana.
According to U.S. Department of Justice records obtained by OC Weekly, Kenneth Hien Vu (a.k.a. Kenny Nguyen) is a leader of “a nationwide marijuana-trafficking and money-laundering enterprise.”
Federal agents arrested Vu on Feb. 7 in Orange County, denied him bail because he is considered a high flight risk and have transported him to the custody of U.S. marshals in Grand Rapids.
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For at least two years, Vu's alleged operation used vehicles, the United State Postal Service and United Parcel Service (UPS) to ship packages of high-quality “Cush” from California throughout the United States, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Georgia and South Carolina, according to court records.
Many pot packages were mailed using a post-office-box address in Huntington Beach.
Authorities also allege that large cash revenues were masked by depositing less than $10,000 at a time in numerous bank accounts.
In one four-month period in 2012, for example, one of these alleged tainted bank accounts saw cash deposits totaling more than $1.6 million.
According to court records, federal agents have also arrested accused co-conspirator Uy Tran in Nebraska and are searching for a fugitive in the case, Dustin Castenholz of Michigan.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.