Chaplin's, an Atlanta jewelry store, must forfeit inventory worth an estimated $1.87 million for its role in a money laundering scheme, the federal appeals court in Atlanta has ruled.
The court rejected Chaplin's arguments that the order to forfeit its inventory was excessive punishment. Chaplin's and a store employee were convicted in 2007 for selling $22,000 in jewelry to an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer and then failing to report the cash transaction to the IRS. Chaplin's also was fined $100,000 and ordered to return the $22,000.
Toros Seher, the brother of the jewelry store's owner, was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in the scheme.
The court's ruling noted that Seher had sold jewelry in cash transactions between 1996 and 2002 at another location to people he knew were drug dealers. Federal investigators learned of this activity and launched the undercover probe. An undercover investigator, posing as a drug dealer, began meeting with Seher during 2005 and 2006 at Chaplin's and bought expensive jewelry from him, the court said.
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