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sanash t1_j50h11q wrote

Honestly surprised DeSantis didn't bring this criminal into his administration and put him in charge of the state's economy.

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Different-Music4367 t1_j50ht6t wrote

From the article:

> Bitzlato did business with customers in the U.S. and its employees advised users that they could transfer funds to American banks. Legkodymov allegedly led the exchange as its senior executive and majority owners from Miami since 2023. He faces a maximum of 5 years in prison if convicted, but federal authorities on Wednesday stressed that the investigation is ongoing and additional  charges could follow.

That's where he screwed up. Even so, the US government has very limited jurisdiction, as he is not a US national and most of his company's criminal activity is extraterritorial.

On paper his maximum sentence looks to be even lighter than Al Capone getting caught on tax evasion.

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Different-Music4367 t1_j50kknk wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,406,609)

Nice reading comprehension bro. By your logic I guess I'm also upset that they busted Al Capone? 🤔

Why don't you direct that outrage to the fact that our politicians have made it so that 700 million dollars in money laundering apparently has a maximum sentence of 5 years?

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Constant-Ad9398 t1_j50mndv wrote

Replying to Icanbotthinkofaname (#1,406,700)

If i was doing money laundering I'd prefere to use a bank, cartels, inside traders, billionaires etc. use it all the time and they seems to get away with it or use one of the many loopholes in our financial system like donate art or have my own charity organizations or something like that

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[deleted] t1_j50n8m2 wrote

Most interested in who the “majority owners from Miami” are. Conspicuously absent from the article.

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ultradianfreq t1_j50wc00 wrote

Would be nice if bankers faced similar repercussions for things like laundering money for cartels.

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LordOfTheTennisDance t1_j50y76l wrote

Oh no...I am so shocked that a fraudulent currency was used to commit....... Fraud.

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MrDinglehut t1_j512jlk wrote

Is that not the goal of cryptocurrency?

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BurritoLover2016 t1_j514qc9 wrote

Replying to Different-Music4367 (#1,406,647)

I don't know what they said as the comment is deleted but your wording on Capone's sentence is....odd. Yes, he only received 11 years but seeing as he essentially spent the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted, that's a strange analogy?

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caseyjcannon t1_j517jzt wrote

More and more I feel a huge driving force being the crypto fad was driven by Russia's Internet Research Agency (a troll farm) to massively redistribute wealth and launder money. By no means the only force, but the crossover of personalities favoring it and involved in Russian narratives is hard to take as a coincidence. I'm speculating too much, to be fair, and sadly the anonymous nature and lack of investigative resources to try and identify any trends will likely mean we'll never know who truly profited from the crypto scheme.

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brain-gardener t1_j517mug wrote

Good Guy DOJ reminding folks that crypto is not some untraceable asset for criminals

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Thanhansi-thankamato t1_j518civ wrote

Everyone here acting like banks haven’t been laundering dirty money for ever and like they don’t launder far more.

Edit: This just in, traditional financial corp does traditional finance things but this time with crypto.

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unforgiven91 t1_j51a0dh wrote

Replying to brain-gardener (#1,408,052)

crypto is hilariously easy to trace, which is the best part. wait until you snag that sweet NFT you've been eyeing. the moment you post about it (because what's the point of an nft if you can't pump and dump the asset with artificial hype?), the wallet and all of its transactions immediately connect to you

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Actual__Wizard t1_j51e3jz wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,408,378)

Yeah okay... /eyeroll

I'm not sure where you get your information from, but you might want to rethink your source...

I mean maybe the visible internet that is easily searchable is not a good place to hide information about crime right?

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OlSnickerdoodle t1_j51eegw wrote

I'm sorry but the High Tech Axis of Crypto Crime sounds like a pretty cool super villain group

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FerociousPancake t1_j51h1cj wrote

Probably was giving money/dealing with republican funds. They do love Russia and PuPu…

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SucksToYourAssmar3 t1_j51kenx wrote

Replying to OlSnickerdoodle (#1,408,520)

COWER BEFORE THE MIGHT OF FINTECH!

Cyber-sharkman villain bursts through the wall

WE'RE HERE TO TAKE A BITE OUT OF TRADITIONAL BANKING! ENTRUST YOUR MONEY TO THE FEARSOME FINTECH AND SEE RETURNS OF 1 JILLION PERCENT! CASH IN YOUR 401K!

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ready2diveready2die t1_j51vb3b wrote

There’s a financial terrorist that opened up shop in Miami goes by the name of Kenneth C. Griffin. When will his day be up?

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PoopyBootyhole t1_j521sfi wrote

Replying to point_breeze69 (#1,408,056)

Crazy how people think the US dollar isn’t an actual Ponzi scheme and a larger percentage of dollars is used for fraudulent transactions than crypto. It’s actually really stupid to use crypto for illicit activities considering it’s a public ledger. You gotta be extra stupid to use crypto for fraud.

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point_breeze69 t1_j53h5t5 wrote

Replying to Actual__Wizard (#1,408,474)

Maybe not in the US but in a lot of other countries it is being used for everyday things. Latin America, Ukraine, parts of Africa for example.

It’s coming to the US soon too. Mastercard and Visa are currently working to integrate the Ethereum blockchain into their payment process system. Layer 2s are faster and cheaper then traditional ways of payment processing.

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point_breeze69 t1_j53hirb wrote

Replying to unforgiven91 (#1,408,196)

Bitcoin may not be the chain to perform beer transactions. Ethereum using layer-2s and roll-ups are though. Major companies like visa and MasterCard are already in the processing of adopting this tech because it’s cheaper and faster.

Bitcoin is great for moving large amounts of value though. Nothing comes close to its efficiency. Recently a billion dollars of value was transferred for something like .68 cents in tx fees. That isn’t happening with cash or gold, not even close.

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point_breeze69 t1_j53iqg1 wrote

Replying to PoopyBootyhole (#1,409,941)

People love to defend the monetary system that fuels war, raises inflation, helped to create an ever increasing wealth gap, and is controlled by politicians and big banks. I can understand why, those guys have been ardent defenders of the workingman since the invention of the wheel.

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PoopyBootyhole t1_j53lyp8 wrote

Replying to point_breeze69 (#1,413,149)

People are conditioned to the current system so they think there isn’t another way or the one we have is fine. It’s not. An infinite money/ cheep debt based system where wealth funnels to the top creates more problems than people realize. It’s a Ponzi scheme on a absolutely massive scale and the losers are us through a hidden tax called inflation.

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Bumazka t1_j53mn3u wrote

It’s the same as using money for money laundering

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jert3 t1_j53roi4 wrote

Great! Less criminals in crypto, the better.

It still seems like it will be years of dragging its heels before the SEC, and similar organizations actually give crypto a fair chance at legislation that protects consumers, same as they do for banks.

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ryansgt t1_j53trje wrote

Replying to HappyFunNorm (#1,406,556)

I mean if it's a privacy coin, sure. You'd have to be a major idiot to attempt to launder through most because it's literally a public ledger. There is a completely public record of every transaction on chain since inception.

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Ed_Durr t1_j53waw8 wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,412,979)

I convert $10,000,000 into bitcoin. I send that bitcoin to my good friend Pablo, who in turn ships me a few tons of cocaine. Pablo then converts that bitcoin into pesos.

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Fiddler_s_green t1_j54wmho wrote

Crypto, Russians, Crime. Who could have seen this coming......

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Ello_Owu t1_j568sxj wrote

I know absolutely nothing about crypto, but always had the suspicion that it was pushed into the mainstream for oligarchs to get around sanctions.

Remember when Russian oligarchs were getting their shit seized left and right after those sanctions were thrown on them after the invasion of Ukraine? And right around that time crypto basically tanked hard.

Little suspicious

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unforgiven91 t1_j57ay5t wrote

Replying to BagHolder9001 (#1,421,101)

I can't wait for the whole world to be tied in to the blockchain, having that chain be immutably broken and exploited then forked in to a new blockchain because wealthy investors lost money. Now we live in a reality where 2 similar chains exist and neither chain can identify what's real.

Definitely a system I look forward to existing, and definitely not the worst idea I've ever heard

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BagHolder9001 t1_j57lw0h wrote

Replying to unforgiven91 (#1,421,763)

huh looking and bs going on at US bank right now, all the hacks at insurance companies ( blue cross blue shield) credit companies lost a lot of info ( Equifax?) target and home Depot got hacked...I don't think we are any less vulnerable via blockchain actually exponentially MORE secure

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ItIsYourPersonality t1_j5whj54 wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,406,795)

Let’s see… FTX was just busted and it’s been revealed that stock based coins they traded were not actually backed by shares of stock, but were being used as “locates” for shorting stock. I’d start looking into hedge funds that used crypto tokens as share locates. Perhaps ones that reported record profits in a year of record losses for other hedge funds, and coincidentally just recently moved their headquarters to Miami….

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