Former Chicagoan gets 5 years in prison for $100 million scheme involving Mexican drug cartels

A former Chicagoan who pleaded guilty last year to laundering money from illegal drug sales on behalf of two Mexican cartels has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Mario Herrera, 55, of Michoacan, Mexico, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood in Chicago for conspiracy to commit money-laundering, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Herrera helped clean more than $100 million from the sale of narcotics on behalf of the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, according to federal prosecutors, who said he was responsible for laundering or attempting to launder about $1.07 million of cartel money.

Herrera was among 30 defendants charged charged in a Chicago-based federal investigation dubbed “Operation King’s Gold.”