Californian Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison for Laundering Bitcoin Money
Date: 2025-03-17 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: IN WORLD
A California resident admitted to participating in a criminal conspiracy aimed at laundering money and running an unlicensed money transfer business. The investigation found that he was smuggling counterfeit drugs and MDMA (ecstasy) pills from Germany, selling them for bitcoins through shadow platforms in the United States. To legalize the proceeds, the defendant and his accomplices converted the cryptocurrency into dollars and distributed the funds through numerous bank accounts.
In May 2022, Texas law enforcement agencies brought charges against him for money laundering, and in August, the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California brought additional charges of illegally importing drugs. The man was arrested on August 19. The investigation involved the US Secret Service, the US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), and the Homeland Security Investigations Service in San Francisco.
USPIS previously announced plans to tighten its surveillance of cryptocurrency-related crimes and develop training programs for its employees.
Such crimes are not uncommon. Last year, a Michigan resident was sentenced to more than a decade for drug and weapons trafficking on the dark web, as well as using cryptocurrency to launder proceeds.
