The illicit love story between the money launderer and the fentanyl trafficker working together to shower New England with deadly opiates came crashing down under the weight of a multi-year federal investigation.

Carolina Correa, 35, of Cranston, was sentenced this week to three-and-a-half years in federal prison, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial penalties, for being the “financially savvy” partner who helped to grow the Providence-based fentanyl trafficking business of her boyfriend.

That boyfriend Jasdrual Perez, who apparently goes by “Josh,” according to court documents, was sentenced in December 2024 to 22-and-a-half years in prison for leading a large-scale fentanyl trafficking conspiracy in which he manufactured and distributed millions of fentanyl pills made to look like oxycodone and Percocet.

“Correa lived with Perez, benefited from the lifestyle funded by Perez’s drug dealing, brainstormed ideas with Perez for laundering his drug money, and then orchestrated a multi-state scheme to launder drug proceeds through a Massachusetts company in a way where she was personally in line to earn a Chief Financial Officer title and potentially earn millions of dollars if her scheme had been successful,” federal prosecutor Lindsey Weinstein wrote in a sentencing memo in which she asked the judge to sentence Correa to 66 months — or five-and-a-half years — in prison.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin sentenced Correa to 42 months in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release. She is also ordered to pay a %150,000 fine and forfeit $350,000 in illegal drug proceeds.

Weinstein says that Correa, a professional non-profit fundraiser, approached a person who owns a marijuana dispensary business but that owner wanted nothing to do with Perez’s drug money. So Correa said that she would instead recruit “investors” to the business. These so-called “investors” actually agreed to funnel the drug proceeds through their own businesses to the dispensary as investments. For finding these “investors,” Correa would be given an ownership stake and the CFO title in the dispensary.

“When money launderers, like Correa, ‘clean’ drug money, they are protecting and strengthening an industry — the drug trafficking industry — that directly harms millions of people. By making drug profits usable, launderers allow drug trafficking organizations to operate like legitimate businesses,” Weinstein wrote.

She added that it allows the drug business, like a legitimate business, to reinvest in itself and build bigger: “laundering thus operates as a force multiplier, magnifying the social damage caused by drugs beyond what street-level dealing alone could sustain.”

It was a symbiotic relationship that Perez appreciated.

“If I got do 30 years. . . I got into business with her [Correa]. Like a lot of (stuff) I was supposed to lose I didn’t lose because of that woman [Correa]…we don’t work like being in a relationship, we work like as…like buying (stuff), building (stuff), business wise,” Perez said, according to the sentencing memo.

Incident Summary

BPD responded to 262 incidents in the 24-hour period ending at 10 a.m. Friday, according to the department’s incident log. Those included three robberies, five aggravated assaults, and 21 instances of miscellaneous larceny.

Arrests

All of the below-named defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

— Kani Young, 56 Hillsdale, Boston. Operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license.

— Edward King, 112 Southampton St., Roxbury. Assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

— Miguel Diaz, 53 Stanwood St., Dorchester. Operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license.

— Terrell Alves, 85 Tennis Road, Mattapan. Trespassing.

— Diamante Serrano, 8 Mercer St., South Boston. Possession of Class B drugs.

— Alison Soto Contera, 9 Wilkinson Park, Dorchester. Carrying a loaded firearm without a license.

— Jennifer Lightbody, 745 Nantasket Ave., Hull. Larceny less than $1,200.

— Jahmyia Ennis-Fonville, 231 Talbot Ave., Boston. Shoplifting.

— Arismely Guerrero 96 Stanwood St., Dorchester. Possession of Class E drugs.

— Elias Moreta, 270 Margaretta Drive, Boston. Distribution of Class D drugs.