{"id":24459,"date":"2023-01-18T22:08:06","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T03:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=24459"},"modified":"2023-01-18T22:08:06","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T03:08:06","slug":"bitzlato-crypto-founder-charged-with-700m-financial-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/01\/18\/bitzlato-crypto-founder-charged-with-700m-financial-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitzlato crypto founder charged with $700m financial crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Authorities have seized cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato, and arrested its co-founder, accusing the firm of fuelling a “high-tech axis of crypto crime”.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The US Department of Justice charged Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national living in China, with running a business that catered to what he once described as “crooks”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They said Bitzlato processed more than $700m (\u00a3567m) in illicit funds, breaking rules designed to thwart money laundering.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Legkodymov was arrested in Miami.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Institutions that trade in cryptocurrency are not above the law and their owners are not beyond our reach,” US Attorney Breon Peace said at a press conference on Wednesday, announcing the arrest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“As alleged, Bitzlato sold itself to criminals as a no-questions-asked cryptocurrency exchange, and reaped hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of deposits as a result. The defendant is now paying the price for the malign role that his company played in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Since 2018, the Hong Kong-registered exchange had processed about $4.5bn worth of crypto currency transactions, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The firm required minimal identification from its users, allowing it to become a “haven for criminal proceeds and funds intended for use in criminal activity”, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They alleged that the firm was aware of the issues, citing an internal document that described Bitzlato as handling “dirty money” without standard customer-vetting procedures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Authorities said the firm was closely connected to Hydra Market, a darknet marketplace for drugs, money laundering and stolen financial information that international authorities shut down last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bitzlato claimed it did not accept US customers but prosecutors said it in fact did “substantial” business with Americans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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US authorities worked with law enforcement in France and other countries on the operation.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authorities have seized cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato, and arrested its co-founder, accusing the firm of fuelling a “high-tech axis of crypto crime”. The US Department of Justice charged Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national living in China, […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[9104,9105,9077,4686,2913,9106,1484],"class_list":{"0":"post-24459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-bitzlato","11":"tag-crypto-crime","12":"tag-crypto-exchange","13":"tag-cryptocurrency","14":"tag-france","15":"tag-hydra-market","16":"tag-money-laundering","17":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24462,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24459\/revisions\/24462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}