Harlingen Wells Fargo bank manager sentenced for laundering $410K in drug money, feds say

HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — A man who was employed as a Wells Fargo bank manager in Harlingen was sentenced for his role in a nearly two-year long money laundering scheme, court records indicate.

Stephen Roland Reyna was sentenced Wednesday to 20 months in prison on a charge of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, federal records show.

An indictment charges Reyna and co-conspirator David Mares with participating in the laundering scheme from August 2016 to April 2018.

According to the indictment, Mares was a “participant in a narcotics smuggling organization,” and would ship multiple pounds of cocaine from Texas to other states. The money from the deliveries would be deposited into Wells Fargo bank accounts, where Reyna was employed as a bank manager at a branch in Harlingen, the document stated.

Co-conspirators in other states would deposit money from the shipments into the accounts, and then the cash would be withdrawn at the bank in Harlingen.

“[Reyna] would direct his employees to authorize withdrawals that involved the proceeds of the sale of the controlled substances for co-conspirators who made the withdrawals,” the indictment stated.

The indictment further states Reyna bypassed bank protocols, as well as instructed his employees to bypass bank protocols. Reyna would then be paid a portion of the cash withdrawals, the document stated.

In all, Reyna assisted in the laundering of $410,000 in drug sale proceeds, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated.

“If you help drug traffickers ‘clean’ their money, you will be prosecuted,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani in the release. “It is especially disappointing that a bank manager for Wells Fargo chose to violate his position of trust for easy money, money from organizations that are destroying our communities.”

As part of his sentencing, Reyna is ordered to serve an additional 16 months of supervised release and must report to probation 72 hours of his release, records show.

According to federal records, Mares is scheduled for sentencing on April 5.