Reported by BusinessNC

The owner of a Charlotte area car dealership and a sales manager have pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy charges. John Harvey Martin, 50, of Charlotte, pleaded guilty Friday, Aug. 16, and Vincent Emmanuel Jefferson Jr., 47, of Fort Mill, South Carolina, pleaded guilty on Tuesday, August 13, 2024.

According to court records, Martin was the owner of iNetwork Auto Group, a car dealership located in Charlotte. Martin also owned and operated The Scorpio nightclub, also located in Charlotte. Martin was a sales manager for iNetwork.

From July 2017, through January 2021, Martin and Jefferson engaged in a money laundering scheme by selling approximately 20 luxury vehicles to G.D., an individual who the defendants knew was a drug dealer or of whom they were willfully blind to that fact. The defendants received cash payments from G.D., also knowing or being willfully blind to the fact that the cash represented property derived from some form of criminal activity.

Jefferson and Martin further facilitated the fraud by allowing G.D. to buy the vehicles using the names of straw purchasers in order to conceal G.D.’s identity and hide the illicit source of the cash G.D. was using to pay for the vehicles.

Martin and Jefferson at times forged the signatures of straw purchasers on sales, registration, and title paperwork for the vehicles sold to G.D., and frequently notarized the paperwork knowing that the straw purchasers were not the true purchasers of the vehicles. 

Read full report: https://businessnc.com/charlotte-car-dealership-nightclub-tied-to-money-laundering/