Mum accused of laundering son's tainted cash - Jersey Evening Post
by Megan Davies · Jersey Evening PostPosted inNews
Mum accused of laundering son’s tainted cash
by Megan Davies 4 August 20264 August 2026
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A WOMAN who allegedly let her son use her bank account to launder almost £40,000 he made through drug trafficking has appeared in the Royal Court for the first day of her trial.
Mariela Josefina Gomez Marquez (55) denies one count of entering or becoming concerned in an arrangement that facilitates the acquisition, use, possession or control of criminal property by or on behalf of another person – or money-laundering.
Opening the Jurat trial yesterday, Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit said Ms Gomez Marquez’s son, Javier Gomez, made the tainted cash through a “brazen” drug trafficking operation.
The court heard that the operation was exposed by a Customs investigation dubbed Operation Mink which involved the “seizure of commercial quantities of cocaine” with some of the drug “concealed in battery charging devices and simply carried through customs”.
Three other people have already been convicted in relation to the operation, including Mr Gomez, who was described as playing a “principal” part in the enterprise, with large amounts of money flowing via him.
Advocate Maletroit told the two Jurats that in July 2024, Barclays – where Mr Gomez had an account – limited cash deposits to £20,000 per year.
“That’s where the defendant comes in,” he said.
He showed Jurats Ms Gomez Marquez’s bank statements. It is the prosecution’s case that these showed a cycle with a “flurry” of cash deposits into Ms Gomez Marquez’s HSBC account, sometimes multiple times in a day and that she would then transfer large sums to her son.
For example, on 21 October 2024, she put in £700, then £280 a minute later, £580 a minute later, £200 a few minutes later, and then transferred £1,700 to Mr Gomez.
“What is easier – handing in all the money in one go, or pulling out bundle after bundle?” he asked.
In 2023, he said, Ms Gomez Marquez made 34 cash deposits totalling £2,325, received £320 from her son, and send £40 to her son, the court heard.
However, the following year, she made 99 cash deposits totalling £21,660 – more than she had earnt the previous year. She received £2,350 from her son and sent him £17,250 in 17 transfers.
And, in 2025, she paid £15,460 in cash into her account, split into 43 deposits, received £460 from her son, and sent him £11,550 – before her bank account was frozen in April that year.
Advocate Maletroit said that on some days Ms Gomez Marquez made several trips to the bank and used automatic deposit machines to avoid having to explain herself to staff.
He also highlighted transactions to a company called Venworld, which she said allowed her to send money back to Venezuela – but which the Crown Advocate said was part of her reward for “turning a blind eye” to her son’s activities.
A waitress at a hotel at the time, Ms Gomez Marquez had limited means and was in debt, he said – making the transactions even more suspicious.
The drug trafficking enterprise Mr Gomez was involved in was exposed when a car his associate used was seized and, after missing it at first, Customs officers found a stash of cocaine hidden in a battery charging device.
On one occasion, Crown Advocate Maletroit added, Ms Gomez Marquez was willing to meet a stranger to receive cash and said that suspecting that money was the result of criminality is enough to be guilty of money-laundering.
Ms Gomez Marquez said she did not know where the cash came from.
She took an attitude of “none of my business”, the Crown Advocate said, adding: “Unfortunately for her, that is not a defence to money-laundering. You cannot turn a blind eye [or] bury your head in the sand and ignore the obvious.”
Commissioner Patricia Lees is presiding, with Jurats Le Heuzé and Opfermann sitting.
The trial continues.
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