The former employee of a San Francisco money services business, Yessenia Margarita Barrientos-Lainez, was charged on October 27, 2023, with conspiracy to launder drug proceeds. As per the United States Attorney's Office, while working at the Tenderloin district business, Barrientos-Lainez wired significant sums to several foreign bank accounts, including ones in Mexico. This was carried out on behalf of an undisclosed co-conspirator.

In Barrientos-Lainez's case, money laundering is part of a wider network of transactions, facilitating the circulation of illegal narcotics. Her unnamed co-conspirator is a known Bay Area drug trafficker, arrested in possession of narcotics by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Daly City on June 1.

The complaint against Barrientos-Lainez indicates that she structured the wire transfers to avoid certain reporting requirements and charged her co-conspirator an "under-the-table fee" for the transactions. Surveillance footage from the money services business provides evidence of her handling large cash sums and processing wire transfers without customers at her station, according to the United States Attorney's Office.

The association between money laundering and narcotics trafficking is a recurring societal concern. The 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment by the DEA explains that laundering drug proceeds facilitates the transfer of funds from the United States to international entities. Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in particular rely heavily on vast networks of money laundering techniques to move and store illicit proceeds, as is potentially the case with Barrientos-Lainez.