The executive of a Paramount-based clothing company who admitted to undervaluing imported garments in a scheme to avoid paying millions in customs fees while conducting business with a woman tied to the Sinaloa Cartel was sentenced Friday to four years in federal prison.

Bell resident Mohamed Daoud Ghacham, 40, pleaded guilty in December 2022 to one count of conspiracy to pass false and fraudulent papers through a customhouse.

Federal prosecutors say he operated owned a clothing company called Ghacham Inc. but did business under the brand name Platini. From July 2011 to February 2021, Ghacham imported clothing from China for his company.

Ghacham would then have Chinese suppliers prepared two invoices — one that reflected the actual price of the good, which they kept for their accounting records, and a fake invoice that understated the actual price.

He’d then submit the fake invoices to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents where he undervalued the value of the garments, according to authorities.

This allowed Ghacham and his company to avoid paying the full amount of taxes they owed on the imported materials, federal prosecutors said.

In total, Ghacham undervalued the garments by more than $32 million, saving him more than $6.3 million in taxes, according to federal prosecutors.

During this time, the company was also conducting business with Maria Tiburcia Cazarez Perez, a woman who was previously designated as being on the Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers sanctions list for her connection to the Sinaloa Cartel’s money laundering crimes and is currently serving out a 15-year federal prison sentence for drug trafficking, according to authorities.

In addition to serving a four-year sentence, a judge ordered the 40-year-old to pay $6,390,781 in restitution, federal prosecutors said.

In December 2023, Ghacham’s company was also ordered by a judge to pay a penalty of more than $10 million and placed it on a five-year probation after it pleaded guilty the year before to one count of conspiracy to pass false and fraudulent papers through a customhouse and one count of conspiracy to engage in any transaction or dealing in properties of a specially designated narcotics trafficker under a statute known as the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.