Businessman ordered to forfeit property and $40 million

 NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, January 20 2012, 4:43 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/stinks-perfume-merchant-sentenced-drug-cartel-money-laundering-article-1.1009440

The biggest perfume merchant in the Texas border city of Laredo was sentenced Friday in Manhattan Federal Court to 20 years in prison for laundering more than $18 million in cash for a violent Mexican drug cartel.

Vikram Datta, 51, an immigrant from India who started his perfume business in Manhattan, showed no emotion as the sentence was meted out by Judge Lewis Kaplan.

“The defendant has shown little or no contrition,” said Kaplan, who also ordered Datta to forfeit property and $40 million.

A jury found Datta guilty of using his La Versailles Fragance company to launder narcotics proceeds for the Sinaola Cartel.

“This was a successful businessman taking in a ludicrous amount of cash, tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, a day,” said prosecutor Peter Skinner.

When Datta was busted a year ago during a meeting with an undercover agent he said, “This was a misunderstanding.”

Datta did not say anything in court, but before the sentencing he sent Kaplan a 22-page letter in which he said he had “no words to express how sorry I am and how painful is this situation which is created by my loose talking and irresponsible behavior.”