Third multimillion dollar money laundering co-conspirator pleads out, agrees to cooperate against others

A house of cards is falling around the remaining members of an alleged ring of conspiracy that allegedly benefitted $34 million in laundered illegal proceeds of a popular gambling operation that should instead have benefitted children in medical need.

Minda C. San Nicolas pleaded guilty to three of dozens of charged felonious counts she faced in the original indictment filed against her and six others in May. These three counts include conspiracy to commit illegal gambling and money laundering involving the former Hafa Adai Bingo operation. The seven indicted in May followed the conviction by plea agreement of the first criminal actor of the Hafa Adai Bingo operation conspiracy: Won Sun Min, who was indicted the year prior under seal.

Ms. San Nicolas now is the third of eight co-conspirators and alleged co-conspirators to plead out.

Alfredo Leon Guerrero, the former president of the Guam Shrine Club, signed a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office on October 19, according to a recently-unsealed court document.

The plea agreements tighten the legal noose around their five former co-defendants against whom the three have agreed to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney’s office and to testify at trial. Those five co-defendants include Michael Marasigan, Art Chan, Christine Chan, Richard Brown, and Juanita Capulong. Ms. Capulong is Mr. Leon Guerrero’s girlfriend, and Ms. San Nicolas’ sister.

The federal government, after a years-long investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has accused Mr. Marasigan and Ms. Min of conspiring with Mr. Leon Guerrero and others of scheming to make substantial profits off a bingo operation illegally made to look legitimate. They are accused of laundering those funds through a series of bank accounts and transactions in order to conceal the illegal activity.

Guam law allows qualified tax-exempt non-profit organizations to operate bingo games in order to raise funds for the stated purposes of the organization. The law states the organization’s officers and members must be the operators of the bingo games.

According to the federal government, Mr. Leon Guerrero, Mr. Chan, and Mr. Brown used their positions as officers of the (now former) non profit Guam Shrine Club to cooperate in a scheme with Mr. Marasigan and Ms. Min to have their businesses operate the bingo games. The FBI gathered evidence from various banking accounts showing funds from the bingo operation were divvied up and kicked back between 2015 and December 2021. More than 90 percent of the estimated $34 million in earnings did not benefit Guam Shrine Club. Its stated purpose is to use funds raised to pay for the travel costs of children needing medical care at the Shriners Hospital in Honolulu.

According to her plea agreement, Ms. San Nicolas was an employee of Mr. Marasigan’s business, Ideal Ventures. She was paid $6,656 in 2018, $7357 in 2019, and $1,846 in 2020, according to her reported earnings to the Guam Department of Revenue and Taxation.

“As part of the illegal gambling conspiracy, Minda C. San Nicolas and others conducted and financed the illegal gambling operation,” her signed plea agreement states. “She invested $100,000.00 in GSC’s Hafa Adai Bingo.” She was employed along with her sister and another co-defendant “to work in the back office counting money at Hafa Adai Bingo.”

Ms. San Nicolas admitted to laundering money and participating in a conspiracy to launder proceeds from the illegal gambling operation along with Mr. Leon Guerrero, Mr. Chan, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Marasigan from January 1, 2018 through March 31, 2020.

“Minda C. San Nicolas created TSAC Ventures, a purported marketing consultant business, and opened bank accounts under the entity’s name in order to receive monies from the bingo establishment,” the plea agreement states, continuing, “It was part of the money laundering conspiracy that Minda C. San Nicolas obtained illegal gambling proceeds from Marasigan. Marasigan issued checks to Minda C. San Nicolas and TSAC Ventures, which Minda C. San Nicolas thereafter deposited into bank accounts she controlled.”

The aggregate amount of the transactions, according to the documented evidence, was $698,694.63.

Mr. Leon Guerrero, Mr. Chan, Mr. Brown, Ms. Min, and Mr. Marasigan, the Leon Guerrero plea agreement states, “were aware that the GSC received at most 10% of bingo proceeds.

According to Mr. Leon Guerrero’s plea agreement, he, Mr. Chan, and Mr. Brown wrote Guam Shrine Club checks between 2017 and 2021 totaling $18,200,746.31 to Ms. Min, Mr. Marasigan, and the companies they owned.

Ms. Min and two of her companies, including Mijoo Realty, allegedly received $2,326,180.23 in laundered funds.

Mr. Marasigan and his Ideal Ventures allegedly received $15,874,566.08 in laundered funds.

According to Mr. Leon Guerrero’s plea agreement, Mr. Marasigan distributed illegal gambling proceeds to Ms. Chan, Ms. Capulong, and Ms. San Nicolas. Ms. Capulong, according to the document, received $637,680.47 from Mr. Marasigan and deposited some of that amount in joint bank accounts with Mr. Leon Guerrero.

The forfeiture section of his plea agreement makes another disclosure to which Mr. Leon Guerrero has agreed: That he laundered $4,170,689.26 through the scheme. He has agreed to forfeit that cash immediately to the federal government.

Mr. Leon Guerrero pleaded guilty to Count 2 of the indictment, a money laundering charge which carries with it a possible prison term of up to 20 years. 

Ms. San Nicolas, had she gone to trial and lost her case, faced even more time in prison that Mr. Leon Guerrero. Each of her money laundering guilty pleas carry a maximum 10 year prison term. Her conviction by guilty plea on her Conspiracy to Operate Illegal Gambling Business charge carries a maximum five year prison sentence.

The federal government has agreed to recommend downward departures in both their sentencing if they provide the federal government “substantial assistance” against their co-defendants.

Ms. San Nicolas also has agreed to forfeit $533,921.58 to the federal government, which is the amount of her known proceeds from the conspiracy less taxes already paid.