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A Metropolitan Police Department officer is facing federal money laundering charges in an alleged cocaine trafficking ring that spanned from Pittsburgh to Baltimore. Officer Jared K. Weinberg, 28, was arrested yesterday at MPD’s Fourth District station, where he is stationed, on charges that he was part of a scheme that laundered as much as $2 million.
The Washington Post reports that Weinberg joined MPD in February 2012; a sworn affidavit by an Internal Revenue Service agent states that Weinberg’s alleged participation in the money laundering operation took place between 2006 and 2001. The Post reports that following his arrest, Weinberg was placed on administrative leave. He was arraigned in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia but is being ordered to report to federal court in Pittsburgh, where the charges were filed.
A suspected Pittsburgh-area cocaine dealer was indicted in March; Weinberg is one of a dozen accused in participating in the money laundering operation.
According to the affidavit, Weinberg allegedly hid drug money in bank accounts based in and around Baltimore, Chicago, and New York. In total, court documents state, the participants in ring made 305 deposits into 29 different bank accounts, with some of the money being used to pay for apartments.
Weinberg, who in 2010 and 2011, worked as a lifeguard at a gym in Elkridge, Md., is accused of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug payments from a messenger on behalf of a drug supplier suspected of heading the operation. Many of the payments were made at the Mall in Columbia or at apartments where suspected participants in the laundering operation lived. Court documents state that Weinberg used some of the money to pay for an apartment in nearby Pikesville during the time he worked at the gym.