The major indictments of four people connected to the Colorado marijuana industry rest on stacks of financial documents and the testimony of two law enforcement agents, federal prosecutors have revealed in a court filing.
The two, unidentified law enforcement agents were the only witnesses before the grand jury that indicted the four men last month, according to the court document. The evidence in the case “is largely comprised of financial documents,” according to the document.
“No lay witnesses testified before the grand jury,” the prosecution’s filing states.
Related: Previous coverage on the federal raids on Colorado’s medical marijuana industry
The four men — attorney David Furtado, marijuana business owner Gerardo Uribe, Uribe’s brother and business associate Luis Uribe, and Colombian national Hector Diaz — are accused of money laundering and attempting to engage in an illegal financial transaction. According to their indictments, the men conspired to funnel money from Colombia to buy a Denver warehouse for marijuana growing. The indictment also alleges that Gerardo Uribe and Furtado tried to deposit proceeds from the VIP Cannabis medical-marijuana dispensary into a bank account — which is a federal crime because all money made selling marijuana is considered illegal under federal law.
So far, few details of the exact evidence against the men — or what led authorities to begin investigating them — have been revealed. The new filing is the prosecution’s response to a request from the defendants that grand jury materials be shared with them. In the filing, prosecutors say they don’t object to sharing some grand jury information, so long as defense attorneys don’t make copies of the material or share it with anyone else.
The men were indicted in connection to the largest-ever federal raids on the Colorado marijuana industry. They each could face 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges facing them. Sources previously told The Denver Post that the raids were looking for connections to Colombia drug cartels, but court documents have not alleged such a link.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold
