Martin Tremblay, a Canadian money manager who operated an investment firm in the Bahamas, has been sentenced to four years in prison for laundering US$20,000 in purported drug money, as part of a government sting operation.

Tremblay, 44, the former president of Nassau, Bahamas-based Dominion Investments Ltd, was initially accused of laundering tens of millions of dollars for drug dealers, tax cheats and swindlers. Authorities said more than US$1 billion moved through the account Tremblay used to hide the source of the funds. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in November.

At this week's sentencing in Manhattan federal court, defence attorney Martin Auerbach said Tremblay was a "reluctant bride" who pocketed only US$500 from the scheme after undercover federal agents pressed him to launder funds for them.

"I don't see the behaviour of someone who was motivated by insatiable greed," Auerbach told US District Judge John Keenan.
Keenan rejected the 70-month term prescribed by federal sentencing guidelines, calling it "too large in this case, much too large". Keenan also imposed a US$12,500 fine and ordered Tremblay to forfeit US$220,000. Tremblay, who's from Quebec, will get credit for the 14 months he's already served in prison.
The case grew out of an undercover operation by federal and New York state authorities in 2005 in which Tremblay was videotaped agreeing to launder money, prosecutors said. His operation ran from 1998 to 2005, authorities said.

Investigators claimed they found more than 100 accounts held by Tremblay and Dominion that clients used to hide assets.
Tremblay was accused of laundering cash for clients seeking to conceal the source of their money. Dominion transferred the funds to accounts in the US, Canada and the Bahamas, prosecutors said in their 2005 indictment. Prosecutors said Tremblay participated in seven separate schemes.

"I'm sorry," Tremblay told the judge in court on Tuesday. "I apologise to my family and to the court." The government lured Tremblay to Manhattan in early 2005 as part of an undercover sting operation, according to court papers filed by the defence. There, he met with an agent posing as a Russian businessman who made money through drug trafficking. It took six months before a reluctant Tremblay agreed to launder US$20,000, Auerbach, the defence lawyer, wrote in court papers.

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