DETROIT — A Colombian drug ring laundered at least $14.9 million through banks in Metro Detroit, including one Bank of America account belonging to a successful Latin American musician, federal prosecutors allege.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized the money from Bank of America, Truist Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank and Regions Bank in 2023, and prosecutors Friday unsealed court records that seek to have the haul forfeited to the government.

The court filings describe an ongoing international drug investigation involving an illegal immigrant found in suburban Detroit, the most lucrative money seizure by federal agents in Michigan ― and one of the largest nationwide — since at least 2019 and teases ties to a Latin American celebrity who prosecutors deliberately did not publicly identify.

Though the musician’s identity is being kept private, Colombia has a rich history of music from the “narcocorridos” genre that romanticizes the violent exploits of drug traffickers. Prosecutors believe the money seized in Metro Detroit is tied to drug dealing, though the musician’s accountant had another explanation.

“When DEA interviewed one of the musician’s accountants, the accountant attributed the deposits ... as being linked to Colombian concerts but could not explain why they occurred in cash in the United States,” Assistant U.S. Attorney K. Craig Welkener wrote in the forfeiture complaint.

The ongoing investigation dates to November 2023. That is when DEA agents started investigating an unidentified person for international drug money laundering that is believed to involve a Colombian narcotics ring.

In late November, DEA agents raided Room 108 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Farmington Hills and found a Colombian national suspected of working as a money courier and living illegally in the United States.

Drug rings routinely use low-level couriers to travel, pick up and deposit drug money in accounts at financial institutions nationwide.

Investigators searched the courier and found cash and clues.

The courier had copies and photos of bank deposit slips. The slips and photos showed that the money seized by investigators was laundered through banks by depositing less than $10,000, an amount designed to avoid bank transaction reporting requirements, according to the government.

Investigators also found a backpack in the courier's hotel room filled with eight large bundles of cash wrapped in rubber bands.

"... The suspected courier appears to have been routing drug proceeds through numerous bank accounts ... as part of a broader operation to launder drug proceeds," the prosecutor wrote.

Then, the courier started talking.

He told investigators he was directed via cellphone by someone in Colombia to pick up money in the Detroit area.

"The suspected courier would receive information on who to contact locally and where to meet," the prosecutor wrote. "He would then coordinate with that individual to take possession of the money. Once the suspected courier received the money, he would repackage it and place it in his backpack to transport it, then receive further instruction from a subject in Colombia to make bank deposits."

The courier gave agents permission to search his cellphones, prosecutors said.

Investigators found communications involving money laundering and digital photos and videos of bulk cash, according to the government.

Photos and videos also helped agents chart the courier's money-laundering path throughout the U.S., showing stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, in early November 2023 before arriving in Metro Detroit.

The bank slips showed up at numerous institutions, including PNC and Wells Fargo banks.

"By intermingling drug proceeds with otherwise legal business activity, those responsible sought to conceal their nature and source as drug proceeds, thus involving the entire accounts in concealment money laundering of various kinds, as well as promoting the underlying drug distribution," the prosecutor wrote.

Most of the seized money, $12.8 million, was seized from the Latin American musician's account at Bank of America.

After seizing money from the accounts, investigators discovered "other individuals in addition to the suspected courier who had played a similar money courier role. Many of the companies controlling the underlying bank accounts had import-export businesses, or other links to international commerce," the prosecutor wrote.

The money seized by investigators eclipses some recent federal criminal cases in Metro Detroit.

Last year, prosecutors accused a Florida businessman of orchestrating a $500 million COVID-19 testing scheme and revealed investigators had seized assets worth almost $6.5 million. That includes a $1.2 million SR22T Cirrus airplane and a fleet of exotic vehicles, including a $359,000 Lamborghini Urus and a $373,365 Bentley Bentayga.

In 2017, prosecutors revealed they had seized more than $14.4 million from West Bloomfield Township resident Mashiyat Rashid, the architect of one of the largest health care fraud schemes in Metro Detroit history.

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