Another Canadian in Bitcoin ecosystem, who was the 3rd largest fentanyl dealer, targeted by US in Operation Darkness Falls

Operation Darkness Falls nets Canadian fentanyl dealer The US DoJ, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the US Postal Service and DEA announced several arrests in Operation Darkness Falls, an international operation that sought to ferret out the identities of people selling illegal drugs, especially fentanyl, on the darknet that accepted Bitcoin and other digital currencies [...]

Bitcoin programmer and seller indicted in US for money laundering

A Bitcoin seller was arrested in the US on Friday and charged with 31 offences including international money laundering, operating an illegal digital currency exchange, failing to have an anti-money laundering program in place and structuring transactions. 21-year-old Jacob Campos was a developer at Edge Wallet and a Bitcoin trader who sold Bitcoin in the [...]

International money laundering case allegedly involving the ICO Dragon Coin

According to the federal Thai police, as reported here in the Bangkok Post, the Dragon Coin (which is an ICO), was used for or was involved in it seems unwittingly, an international fraud and money laundering scheme. The Dragon Coin is an ICO allegedly launched with the involvement of a former Triad boss and money [...]

23 members of transnational criminal organization arrested for money laundering

Europol announced today that the Spain and Columbia collectively arrested 23 members of an unidentified transnational criminal organization (the “Group”) involved in laundering the proceeds of crime on behalf of other unidentified transitional criminal organizations. The Group didn’t launder a lot of money – only €2 million.  The Group allegedly used Bitcoin to launder funds [...]

Woman who bought Bitcoin with $300,000 in cash in grocery bags, going to jail for one year

A woman in California, who admitted operating an unlicensed in-person digital currency exchange where she traded cash for Bitcoin,  was sentenced today to 12 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of US$20,000. Theresa Tetley pled guilty to conducting an illegal business and engaging in unlawful monetary transactions involving Bitcoin, and laundering [...]

Canadian Court orders transfer of 420 Bitcoin held by ICO founder, during Court hearing

On Friday, a Québec Court ordered the founder of an illegal ICO, Dominic Lacroix, to transfer $3.7 million worth of Bitcoin during a Court hearing and threatened him with incarceration if he did not immediately do so. Lacroix created the Plexcoin ICO which is the subject of an enforcement action by the SEC. According to [...]

Operation Dark Gold – arrest of 35 darknet vendors using digital currencies for illegal drug trafficking and commerce

The US Department of Justice, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Secret Service, and the DEA  announced the arrest and pending prosecution of more than 35 darknet vendors across the country after a year-long investigation dubbed Operation Dark Gold. US federal law enforcement seized more than $20 million in Bitcoin and other digital currencies, 100 illegal [...]

The non-techie guide to the Blockchain, distributed ledger tech and Bitcoin

This guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, distributed ledger tech, and digital currencies is taken from a collection of presentations, comments, speeches we’ve made at global conferences and articles written by us from 2012 to 2015. Bitcoin Consumer payments and ways of transferring value in Canada and globally have shifted over the last several decades from paper-based media, [...]

US continues its take down of Bitcoin entities with indictment of foreign Bitcoin exchange that “banked” many global cyberattackers and processed $9B in payments

The US continued its take down of Bitcoin companies this week with the unsealing of an indictment against BTC-e and Alex Vinnik, and his arrest in Greece. The Indictment against Vinnik and BTC-e was obtained in January 2017, and was sealed until now so that he could be located internationally and arrangements made to effect [...]

Foreign digital currency exchange fined $110M in US for anti-money laundering law failures

For the first time ever, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FINCEN“), has asserted jurisdiction over a foreign digital currency exchange, BTC-E, for the purposes of fines, and assessed civil penalties for anti-money laundering law failures under the Bank Secrecy Act in the amount of $110,003,314. In July of this year, BTC-E and its founder, [...]