Over the past 8 months data analysts have been investigating a money laundering operation nationwide that funnels small donations in large numbers through “smurfs.” Smurfs are unsuspecting individuals generally over 65, retired, white and liberal. But their names are allegedly being used for these “under the radar” donations.
How is it done? Amounts are donated in very small amounts sometimes less than a dollar but there are several hundred to several thousand per smurf. For example, the top smurf in Florida contributed 10,445 times in 2022 for a total of $554,279.34 in federal donations. In addition, she had 452 state level donations totaling $10,844.27. By the way, she was 90 in assisted living and hadn’t voted recently. Based on a review of the database in our state, the top smurf in South Carolina is from Greenville and had 8,779 federal contributions in 2021-2022 totaling $375,066.70.
In addition to money laundering, this potentially amounts to ID theft and elder abuse. Note that many of these donations are going to liberal PACs such as ACT Blue, but other conservative PACs like Winred are also involved. It is suspected that there is cartel involvement as well as foreign involvement. There is a high correlation between the worst smurf states and those states with high fentanyl deaths/issues.
Analysis is underway by a data team who is working through this and has been for 8 months. This is still being investigated by multiple sources so stay tuned. Is this a database repording issue or something more?
In order to further investigate to see how legitimate this issue is you may want to check this to see if you or your loved ones are on the list. Do the campaign contributions make sense? Go to fec.gov; click on search campaign finance data and input your name or a family members name to see if you were affected under the “individual contributor name.”
Note: Campaign laws dictate that if any campaign donations were not acquired legally, they must be returned.