Colorado Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Role in Money Laundering Conspiracy

Denver – The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado announces that Jason Lee Henderson, age 36, formerly of Wray, Colorado, has been sentenced to 28 months in prison for conspiring to commit money laundering.  Henderson was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $400,858.07 in restitution.  The court also imposed a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $399,452.

According to the plea agreement, from March 2020, until October 2020, Henderson was part of a conspiracy to launder funds obtained from a government official impersonation scheme. Victims in the United States were contacted by telephone and coerced into believing they were under investigation by “Agents” of federal law enforcement agencies (the FBI, SSA, DHS, Treasury, or U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration). It was further part of the conspiracy that the conspirators told these victims that their identities had been connected to a criminal incident, that their imminent arrest and/or deportation from the United States had been ordered by law enforcement, and that the only way to avoid arrest and or deportation was to pay the “Government” large sums of money, as instructed. The victims were instructed to withdraw cash from their bank accounts and mail the cash to various addresses, which turned out to be Walgreens stores in northeastern Colorado.

Henderson was paid to use fake identification cards to pick up victims’ packages of cash mailed to the Walgreens stores in Colorado. The government has identified 57 victims who in total have lost over $7.5 million through this scheme. Of that $7.5 million, $1.6 million in cash was mailed to Colorado. Video surveillance from these stores and text messages from the defendant’s phone tied him to specific fake identification cards used to pick up the packages.

United States District Court Judge Raymond P. Moore sentenced Henderson on February 23, 2023.

This investigation is being conducted jointly with investigators from the Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG), United States Postal Inspection Service, Department of Homeland Security-OIG, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Sterling, Colorado Police Department. The District Attorney for the 13th Judicial District has also provided assistance. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Martha A. Paluch and Laura B. Hurd.

Case number:  22-cr-202