Violetas is a ritzy home-goods boutique on the “Miracle Mile” in Coral Gables, a suburb of Miami. Shoppers buzzed through its locked doors find an array of designer furnishings and expensive knickknacks such as Baccarat chandeliers, Christofle flatware and bowls of purple Brazilian geodes.
That’s not the only business listed there: MVP Imports LLC uses the same address. According to prosecutors in the U.S. and Ecuador, it played a role in a vast operation in which South American smugglers and drug traffickers laundered money through sales of illegally mined gold from the Amazon rain forest.