Crypto exchange Bitzlato pleads guilty to $700 million in money laundering
According to The Block, on December 7th, PANews reported that Anatoly Legkodymov, co-founder of the virtual currency exchange Bitzlato, pleaded guilty to the charge of laundering $700 million in Brooklyn court on Wednesday, according to a statement from the US Eastern District Attorney's Office. Legkodymov was arrested in Miami in January of this year and charged with transferring illegal funds. The indictment alleges that Bitzlato was the largest trading partner of the now-defunct Hydra dark web market, and that market users transferred about $700 million worth of cryptocurrency through Bitzlato. At the same time, Bitzlato also earned more than $15 million in revenue from ransomware. Legkodymov and his team knew that the exchange was being used by criminals. As part of the plea agreement, Legkodymov agreed to dissolve Bitzlato and waive any claims to the approximately $23 million in assets seized from Bitzlato. According to a co-founder of Bitzlato, in addition to Legkodymov, former CEO Mikhail Lunev, marketing director Alexander Goncharenko, contractor Pavel Lerner, and an unnamed development and operations engineer were also arrested in several European countries.
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