A boy who needs to be taken to school.
On a cash handoff in the Dominican Republic, roughly $99,500 changed hands — and a scheme to launder money for sanctioned Venezuelan officials moved one step closer to the American banking system. That transaction is now at the center of a federal guilty plea entered by Irazmar Carbajal de Jesús, a 60-year-old Uruguayan national, in a U.S. federal court.
The Department of Justice announced the plea on March 25. Carbajal admitted to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business with the specific purpose of circumventing U.S. sanctions tied to Venezuelan government figures. The mechanics were deliberate and layered: fake invoices to justify the transfers to banks, funds spread across multiple accounts to avoid detection, and coded language to discuss the operation in plain sight.
That last detail is striking. According to court documents, Carbajal described the money he was moving as "a boy who needs to be taken to school." It's the kind of phrase that sounds innocuous in passing — and that's precisely the point. The scheme was built on the assumption that obfuscation, if thorough enough, could pass for legitimacy.
Undercover FBI agents had told Carbajal's partner that the cash belonged to a sanctioned individual connected to the Venezuelan government who needed it routed into the U.S. financial system. Carbajal and his partner, Arick Komarczyk, agreed to do it — for a 20 percent commission. The destination was a bank account in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The FBI's International Corruption Unit in Miami had been watching both men since 2019, when suspicions first emerged about bank accounts allegedly opened on behalf of members of Nicolás Maduro's family. That's a long runway of surveillance before an arrest. Komarczyk has not been found; investigators believe he is currently in Venezuela.
Carbajal's path to a U.S. courtroom was itself circuitous. He had been living in Santo Domingo, where Dominican commercial records show him as a partner in at least three companies — Alfa Marine Star, Alfa Energy, and Trity RD. He was originally from Baltasar Brum, a small town in Uruguay's northern department of Artigas. Authorities detained him while he was traveling from Uruguay to the Dominican Republic, and he was deported to the United States on October 2, 2025.
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida described the operation plainly: a defendant who agreed to move money tied to a sanctioned Venezuelan official into the United States, using coded language, fake invoices, and layered transactions to obscure what was actually happening. The prosecution was handled jointly by the Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Carbajal is scheduled to be sentenced on June 12. He faces a maximum of five years in prison. The case is a reminder that sanctions enforcement increasingly runs through financial plumbing far from Washington — through cash drops in Caribbean cities, shell company paperwork, and men who charge a fifth of the take to make dirty money look clean.
Notable Quotes
This defendant agreed to move money tied to a sanctioned Venezuelan official into the United States, using coded language, fake invoices, and layered transactions to try to hide what was really happening.— U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, Southern District of Florida
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What makes this case different from a typical money laundering prosecution?
The sanctions angle. This wasn't just moving dirty money — it was specifically helping someone connected to the Venezuelan government get funds into the U.S. financial system despite being legally blocked from it.
How did the FBI actually catch him?
They used undercover agents who approached Carbajal's partner and told him the cash belonged to a sanctioned Venezuelan official. Carbajal agreed to move it anyway, which gave investigators exactly what they needed.
The 20 percent commission stands out. Is that high for this kind of service?
It suggests the risk premium was baked in. Moving money for sanctioned individuals isn't just illegal — it's the kind of thing that draws federal attention. Someone charging a fifth of the total knows what they're taking on.
The coded language — "a boy who needs to be taken to school" — what does that tell us?
That the operation was practiced. You don't develop that kind of phrasing for a one-time job. It points to a network with habits, not a spontaneous arrangement.
His partner is still out there, believed to be in Venezuela. Does that complicate things?
Significantly. Komarczyk is effectively beyond U.S. reach for now. Venezuela doesn't extradite to the United States, so unless he surfaces somewhere else, this case closes with only half the partnership accounted for.
Carbajal had companies in the Dominican Republic. Were those part of the scheme?
The court documents don't say explicitly, but the fake invoices had to come from somewhere. Legitimate-looking business entities are exactly the kind of infrastructure you'd use to justify suspicious transfers to a bank.
What should we watch for at the June sentencing?
Whether the judge treats the Venezuela connection as an aggravating factor. Sanctions evasion tied to a foreign government is a different category of offense than ordinary financial crime, and the sentence could signal how seriously courts are treating that distinction.