On May 28, 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced the arrest of Ralph Olarte, the chief financial officer of California-based shipping company Sport LA Inc., pursuant to a 22-count indictment in which he was charged for his for his role in operating a billion-dollar smuggling operation. Olarte and Sport LA’s chief executive officer Humberto Lopez Belmonte were both recently indicted by a federal jury for operating an international smuggling enterprise. According to federal prosecutors, the enterprise transported goods through the United States into Mexico using fraudulent documents, shell companies, and by paying bribes to public officials and kickbacks to Mexican drug cartels. According to the indictment, the duo made millions of dollars in personal profits by avoiding the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of duties owed to the Mexican government.
Federal prosecutors charged Olarte, Lopez and Sport LA with multiple offenses, including conspiracy to smuggle goods from the United States, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and international promotional and concealment money laundering. Two other defendant companies – H&R Logistics Inc. and Olarte Transport Service Inc. – were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Olarte and Lopez each pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, and a jury trial is currently scheduled to begin on July 21, 2025.
According to the indictment, from approximately 2013, Olarte and Lopez used the defendant companies to smuggle a variety of goods, including contraband, into Mexico. They allegedly used, or directed their co-conspirators to use, fraudulent documents to misrepresent that duties had been paid when they had not. They also allegedly established shell companies in Mexico that were listed as the recipients for the goods to be shipped to Mexico, in an effort to mask the identities of their true clients. Olarte and Lopez also allegedly laundered the proceeds of the scheme through Mexican shell companies and into U.S. bank accounts associated with Sport LA, which did business as H&R Logistics or Olarte Transport Service.
USAO CDCA Press Release | Indictment | Olarte – Criminal Minutes Arraignment | Lopez – Criminal Minutes Arraignment