Unlicensed crypto exchange operator faces 25 years for laundering $13m
A California resident is expected to plead guilty to charges of operating an unlicensed exchange and laundering more than $13 million. 49-year-old peer-to-peer crypto trader, Hugo Sergio Mejia, has agreed to plead guilty to charges of money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.The U.S. Attorney’s Office accuses Mejia of using a suite of limited liability corporations to conceal the true nature of his operations while exchanging cash for Bitcoins over a period spanning more than two years.The complaint accuses Mejia of transferring funds between Bitcoin and....
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A federal grand jury has charged one man with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and two others with money laundering and related charges in the first bitcoin-related case before the Western District of New York, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Western District of New York. The grand jury has charged Richard Petix of Rochester, N.Y. with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and making false statements. The grand jury also charged Zhe Wang, 20, and Kevin Szura, 20, both of Queens, N.Y., with money laundering, conspiracy to distribute....
The former operator of bitcoin exchange Coin.mx, Anthony Murgio, has plead not guilty to money laundering. According to Bloomberg, Murgio also plead not guilty to operating the bitcoin exchange, wire fraud and conspiracy. As previously reported by CoinDesk, Murgio was charged with one count of money laundering and one count of willful failure to submit a suspicious activity report. He was arrested alongside Yuri Lebedev in July and accused of using Coin.mx as a money channel for a series of online criminal enterprises. Both him and Lebedev were charged with one count of conspiracy to....
Russian crypto exchange BTC-e’s operator Alexander Vinnik has now been sentenced to five years in prison by a French court and fined 100,000 euros. He was arrested over three years ago in Greece, extradited to France, and is wanted in the U.S. and Russia. Vinnik Sentenced After 3+ Years Alexander Vinnik, the operator of the now-defunct Russian cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was sentenced on Monday to five years in prison by a French court for money laundering. The 41-year-old is also ordered to pay fines of 100,000 euros ($121,270). While convicted of money laundering, Vinnik was....
A California man has been sentenced to three years in federal prison “for operating an unlicensed business that exchanged at least $13 million in bitcoin and cash, often for drug traffickers,” the U.S. Department of Justice said. He agreed to forfeit various assets, including seized cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Exchange Operator Sentenced to 3 Years in Jail
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that a California man, Hugo Sergio Mejia, was sentenced “to 36 months in federal prison for operating an unlicensed business that exchanged at least $13....
Anthony Murgio, who was charged for operating an illegal bitcoin exchange, has appeared in court to address the charges. Murgio was arrested back in July and has spent a few nights in Pinellas County jail before securing a $100,000 bond to be freed. In the hearing, Murgio let his lawyer Gregory W. Kehoe of the big law firm Greenberg Traurig, do the talking. The hearing was held before the United States magistrate judge, James C. Francis IV, in a federal court in Lower Manhattan. Illegal Bitcoin Exchange. According to federal authorities, bitcoin exchange Coin.mx run by Murgio has been a....