​Media report on a possible deal of the Bitzlato founder with the investigation

What’s new? The co-founder of the Bitzlato crypto exchange, Anatoly Legkodymov, who was arrested in the United States on suspicion of money laundering, intends to plead guilty and make a deal with the investigation, Baza reports, citing court documents. According to the materials, “The parties are in preliminary talks about a plea bargain, which, in their opinion, may lead to the consideration of the case without a trial.”

Baza’s material

What is known about the case? According to the FBI, funds obtained by illegal means passed through Bitzlato and $715 million in cryptocurrency was laundered through the exchanger. The bureau accuses Legkodymov of operating “a money transmitting business that transported and transmitted illicit funds and that failed to meet US regulatory safeguards, including anti-money laundering requirements.”

Investigators believe the Bitzlato founder knew about the illegal origin of the assets, but intentionally continued operations and disregarded KYC/AML procedures. Baza journalists assumed that Legkodymov’s trip to the States was part of an agreement with the FBI because his combined prison sentence under the articles he was charged with did not exceed five years, and in the case of a deal, the trial might not take place at all.

How did events develop? Legkodymov was arrested in the US on January 17, later several other people were arrested in Europe in the Bitzlato case, including co-founder of the EXMO crypto exchange Pavel Lerner. They are also accused of taking part in illegal transactions using the exchanger. According to Europol, the amount of money laundered exceeds $1 billion in cryptocurrency.

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On January 18, Bitzlato suspended operations due to a hacker attack, and as part of an investigation against the service, law enforcement seized the wallet that held some customer funds. On March 20, users were given access to withdraw 50% of the assets. After the arrest of the service, all assets were converted to bitcoins, and the return is also carried out in BTC.

In addition, the crypto exchange Binanceblocked accounts associated with Bitzlato. The restrictions affected users from Eastern Europe and the CIS.