Left: Lakento Smith (U.S. Department of Justice). Right: President Joe Biden speaks on May 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
A man living in Texas whose drug-related sentence was commuted by then-President Joe Biden in 2025 was arrested this week on a federal warrant out of Michigan for money laundering.
Lakento Brian Smith, 55, who formerly lived in Muskegon and who most recently lived in Houston, stands accused of one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments to promote felony violations of the Controlled Substances Act, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed by prosecutors on Thursday.
Smith was previously convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and cocaine base or “crack” cocaine, intent to distribute cocaine, and felon in possession of firearms and was sentenced to life in prison in 2006.
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Under the First Step Act, a watershed criminal justice reform bill passed during the first Trump administration, Smith’s sentence was reduced to 30 years in 2019. In January 2025, without a specific explanation, Biden commuted the sentence — while leaving the defendant still subject to eight years of supervised release.
The new charge stems from an alleged drug-dealing operation run by another man in Muskegon, according to the criminal complaint.
In September 2025, law enforcement used a confidential source with a criminal history to inquire about “prices and quantities of cocaine” from the unnamed co-defendant, the complaint alleges.
After subjecting the co-defendant’s residence to surveillance, investigators took note of an interaction in which a person who carried “a large duffle bag from the passenger side of [a] semi-truck and carried the bag” inside with two hands, according to the charging document. Then, some 16 minutes later, the person emerged “carrying a duffle bag in his right hand and a large bag over his shoulder, putting both in the passenger side of the semi-truck and then driving away.”
The complaint alleges this bag exchange was actually a drug deal where bulk amounts of the illicit product were exchanged for large quantities of cash. That’s where Smith allegedly enters the picture.
Federal agents allege Smith helped facilitate the drug operation by arranging to move the proceeds out of the Wolverine State.
In March, during a phone call with an undercover DEA agent, Smith allegedly said he was in Texas but that “everything I got going on” is in Michigan, an apparent reference to the drug operation.
After the first agent arranged a bulk cash pickup with Smith, another undercover agent spoke with the man in Michigan and later engaged in two such cash pickups in the parking lot of a Walmart in Muskegon, according to the complaint.
During the first exchange in March, the Michigan man delivered a brown paper bag to the undercover DEA agent containing two vacuum-sealed bundles of cash allegedly totaling $80,000, as well as a lone dollar bill meant to act as something of a calling card for operational security, according to law enforcement. A second exchange in April allegedly involved another $50,000 bundle of cash.
In June, Smith allegedly met with the first undercover agent outside the defendant’s residence in Houston. There, the two discussed the alleged drug operation at length, authorities say. They discussed Smith’s weekly proceeds and his view of the Michigan man, according to the complaint.
“He’s old school,” Smith allegedly said. “He’s got my best interest. I know he really unconditionally loves me.”
Smith also allegedly expressed a preference for working with cocaine over other more dangerous drugs like fentanyl.
“It’s a party drug, the cocaine,” Smith allegedly said. “I really…I want the cocaine more than I want the other s—.”
Prosecutors allege Smith conspired to transport at least $130,000 in “clean” drug money. The complaint also alleges a series of structured cash deposits between the Michigan man and Smith’s wife, which were allegedly used to evade reporting requirements.
The post ‘I want the cocaine more’: Drug dealer granted clemency by Biden arrested for alleged money laundering scheme first appeared on Law & Crime.
