Resident of Cyprus sentenced to 18 months in prison for money laundering

Date: Feb. 20, 2026

Contact: [email protected]

PHILADELPHIA - United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Geoffrey Magistrate, a current resident of Limassol, Cyprus, and a prior resident of Pennsylvania, was sentenced this week to 18 months in prison by United States District Judge Gerald J. Pappert for money laundering.

The defendant was arrested on a criminal complaint in August of last year. He was charged by information in October and pleaded guilty in November to one count of money laundering, waiving prosecution by indictment.

As detailed in court filings, the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation ("IRS-CI") Global Illicit Financial Team ("GIFT") identified Magistrate as a corporate service provider in Cyprus potentially involved in concealing and laundering funds obtained from illicit enterprises.

Based upon this information, an IRS undercover agent (the "Undercover Broker") proceeded to contact Magistrate by phone and explained that the Undercover Broker had clients looking to shield their identities and move money. Magistrate immediately probed the Undercover Broker for more information about what services the Undercover Broker's clients needed and provided detailed suggestions of how to achieve the supposed clients' goals of laundering money.

As further detailed in court filings and admitted to by the defendant, after meeting the Undercover Broker's "client" (the "Undercover Client," another IRS agent) in person, Magistrate developed a scheme to launder what he believed to be proceeds of bank fraud through a bank account he controlled in Cyprus.

The scheme consisted of claiming that a U.S. company was investing in Magistrate's Cypriot company, which would then, in turn, send money back to the United States to purchase real estate property in the Philadelphia area. In fact, the money would be sent back to a company that Magistrate believed was controlled by the Undercover Client.

In furtherance of the scheme, Magistrate created a false paper trail to document the bogus purpose of the transfers of purported bank fraud proceeds to Cyprus, sent misleading emails purporting to document and describe a phony real estate investment, concocted a story to facilitate the transfer of purported bank fraud proceeds from Cyprus back to the United States, created fake documents showing that Magistrate's company would invest in real estate properties in the Philadelphia area, and advised the Undercover Broker on how to shield the Undercover Client's identity from banks and regulators by having someone else pose as the ultimate beneficial owner of the U.S. company to which the funds would be returned.

From January 2025 to July 2025, in multiple transactions, the defendant laundered a total of $800,000, keeping a $60,000 commission for himself.

This case was investigated by IRS-CI and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ruth Mandelbaum.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.