Global dragnet around a cryptocurrency platform
A Russian, creator of a cryptocurrency exchange platform suspected of having laundered millions of dollars, was arrested on Wednesday, along with five accomplices.
American justice criticizes Anatoly Legkodimov for having adopted a policy of “minimal identification” for his clients, boasting of not asking for “neither selfie nor passport”.
AFP
Founder and main owner of the Bitzlato platform, Anatoli Legkodimov, a 40-year-old Russian living in China, was arrested in the middle of the night in Miami, Florida, US authorities announced at a press conference. He will be presented during the day to a federal judge with a view to his indictment for “unauthorized activity of transmitting money”, a charge punishable by five years in prison.
Five other men, mainly of Russian and Ukrainian nationality, were arrested in Spain (3), Portugal and Cyprus, as part of a vast international police operation led by French gendarmes, said the Paris prosecutor’s office. Another suspect should be quickly arrested and one last fled, according to a source close to the investigation, opened in September 2022 by French justice.
They are suspected of having participated in the creation and development of the Russian-speaking Bitzlato platform, which allows “the rapid conversion of cryptoassets such as bitcoins, ethereum, litecoins, bitcoins cash, dashes, dogecoins and tether USD into rubles”, specified Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau in a statement. “This platform was used by crooks to launder their money,” General Marc Boget, commander of the gendarmerie in cyberspace, told AFP.
The service offered by the Bitzlato company has been put out of use. The domain name and cryptoassets, estimated at nearly 16 million euros, were seized, according to the gendarmerie, which estimates the total transactions recorded on Blitzlato since 2018 at more than 2 billion dollars.
Pariah
This global dragnet “deals a severe blow to the ecosystem of cryptocriminals” and “responds to the crisis of confidence in the cryptocurrency markets”, commented the United States Deputy Minister of Justice, Lisa Monaco. “Whether you are breaking the law in China or Europe, or operating our financial system from an island in the tropics, you can expect to be held accountable for your actions in US court,” she added, referring to the arrest in the Bahamas of the former boss of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried.
American justice criticizes Anatoly Legkodimov for having adopted a policy of “minimal identification” for his clients, boasting of not asking for “neither selfie nor passport”. As a result, Bitzlato has become “a haven for criminal funds”, according to the Department of Justice.
The company is accused of having carried out most of its transactions with Hydra Market, the main sales platform for the global darknet, until it was dismantled in April during a joint operation by German and American authorities.
Operating in the Russian language since 2015, Hydra Market was selling drugs as well as fake documents or malware on this dark side of the internet. According to the US Department of Justice, Hydra users have traded over $700 million in cryptocurrency via Bitzlato. However, according to the complaint, Anatoli Legkodimov knew that his clients were hiding under false identities to carry out illegal activities. In an internal message, he had acknowledged that they were “crooks”.
Along with the lawsuits, the US Treasury has placed Bitzlato on a list of institutions at “risk of money laundering”. “It de facto transforms Bitzlato into an international pariah,” commented Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo.
AFP
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