A federal jury in Washington has simply convicted the Russian-Swedish operator of the crypto mixing service Bitcoin Fog.
In an announcement, the Justice Division says Roman Sterlingov is discovered responsible of cash laundering conspiracy, sting cash laundering, working an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise and violations of the D.C. Cash Transmitters Act.
The jury additionally greenlighted the US authorities’s forfeiture of associated crypto property together with $349,625 price of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Monero (XMR) and Stellar (XLM) held in Kraken accounts and 1,354 BTC held in a Bitcoin Fog pockets.
Proof exhibits that Sterlingov operated Bitcoin Fog from October 2011 to April 2021. The jury discovered that over this era, the crypto mixer moved over 1.2 million BTC price almost $400 million on the time of the transactions.
The Justice Division says many of the funds got here from darknet marketplaces, together with Agora, Silk Highway, Silk Highway 2.0, Evolution and AlphaBay, and are linked to unlawful narcotics, pc fraud and abuse actions and identification theft.
“At launch, Sterlingov publicized Bitcoin Fog as a instrument for anonymizing Bitcoin transactions and evading legislation enforcement. His web site charged clients a charge for the service.
Primarily based on Bitcoin Fog’s transaction exercise over time, Sterlingov made thousands and thousands in commissions from Bitcoin Fog transactions.”
Regulation enforcement authorities discovered Sterlingov’s ties to Bitcoin Fog after analyzing data obtained from a number of crypto exchanges. The data revealed {that a} overwhelming majority of deposits in Sterlingov’s real-name accounts are linked to Bitcoin clusters related to the crypto mixing service.
“Whereas the identification of a BTC handle proprietor is usually nameless (until the proprietor opts to make the knowledge publicly out there), the proof at trial demonstrated that legislation enforcement can determine the proprietor of a specific Bitcoin handle by analyzing the blockchain.”
Sterlingov has been detained since he was arrested on the Los Angeles Worldwide Airport on April 27, 2021.
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