A Los Angeles-based wholesale clothing importer and two of its executives were sentenced Tuesday for avoiding payment of more than $8 million in customs duties on imported clothing, and for operating a money laundering scheme that involved failing to report tax returns for more than $17 million in cash transactions.

Based in the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles, C’est Toi Jeans Inc. imported apparel from China and other countries and exported apparel to customers in Mexico, Central America and South America. The company was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi to five years of probation and was ordered to submit to federal monitoring. Scarsi also fined CTJ $11.5 million and ordered it to pay more than $15 million in restitution.

CTJ’s president, Si Oh Rhew, 71, a resident of La Cañada Flintridge, Calif., who owns 75 percent of the company, was sentenced to eight years and seven months in federal prison. Rhew was also fined $8 million, and was ordered to pay more than $19 million in restitution.

Rhew’s 38-year-old son Lance, 38, who is a CTJ corporate officer, was sentenced to four years in a federal prison. The Los Angeles resident owns another Los Angeles-based company called GLLR Inc. that did business as CTJ. He was also fined $500,000, and he was ordered to pay restitution.

Si Oh Rhew and his wife owned and operated CTJ, which received U.S. currency in bulk cash that was derived from drug trafficking as payment for customer invoices. That money was delivered to CTJ by money couriers, who were unrelated to and unknown to CTJ or to the customers whose invoices were being paid, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

The money couriers including Fernandi Choi, who testified in the CTJ trial, were later charged, but not as part of this specific case.

CTJ and Si Oh Rhew failed to file currency transaction reports, which are required for any transactions topping $10,000 in cash. The defendants concealed the cash receipts from an accountant, who prepared their taxes, which led to the fraudulent omission of more than $17 million in gross sales from tax returns filed with the IRS.

In addition, the Rhews avoided customs duties and tariffs, by purchasing garments from overseas manufacturers, including from China. They then submitted false information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection that understated the true value of the items that were being imported into the U.S. That falsification led to lower import duties.

The investigation was put in motion after law enforcement officials found $38 million in cash in bags belonging to one of the defendants, according to Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

McEvoy said there were “enormous amounts of cash being laundered in the Los Angeles Fashion District.”

The indictment alleges that the defendants sent 515 individual wire transfers totaling $137.1 million to pay overseas suppliers for undervalued garments. CTJ imported goods that were undervalued by more than $51 million, which resulted in approximately $8.4 million in unpaid tariffs and duties to CBP.

Following a six-week trial last fall, CTJ and Si Oh Rhew were found guilty of two conspiracies and multiple counts of failure to file reports of currency transactions. The defendants were found guilty of three counts of entry of falsely classified goods, three counts of entry of goods by means of false statements, three counts of passing false and fraudulent papers through a customhouse and two counts of international promotional money laundering.

The case was part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that uses the full resources of the Department of Justice “to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.”

Both of the Rhews are U.S. citizens. The investigation was conducted by the HSI-led El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force, a multiagency task force that includes federal and state investigators who are focused on financial crimes in Southern California.