This autonomous state within our borders is in a position to launder the ill-gotten cash of oligarchs, kleptocrats, gangsters and drug barons.

Prosecutors say he is a member of a violent drug gang called Big Bags Gang, a reference to the large sacks needed to haul around its ill-gotten cash.

If he was hauling home piles of ill-gotten cash, his neighbors knew nothing about it.

Their little Angola scam had just received a fresh infusion of capital, and the smell of ill-gotten cash was intoxicating.

For weeks, Mr. Turner lived it up with his ill-gotten cash, Mr. Rivera said.

The recordings, shared at subsequent court hearings, include the instructive banter one might expect from people divvying up small pools of ill-gotten cash.

He professes himself an innocent party, claiming not to know which of his many customers the ill-gotten cash came from, and the police have to let the matter drop.

The man who had trailed his own ill-gotten cash, seeking spoils from those he slew, was at the end of his trail.

"All this was done for the sole purpose of lining her pockets with ill-gotten cash," Ms. Brown said.

They were ex-racketeers, still living on ill-gotten cash, like most of the patrons in Lody's.