Illegal crypto exchange with a turnover of $3,5 million was closed in Belarus

The organizers of the service were accused of large-scale tax evasion

13.06.2023 - 15:45

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What’s new? In Minsk, law enforcement officers liquidated an illegal crypto exchanger, the damage from its activities amounted to at least 9 million Belarusian rubles (more than $3,56 million). They managed to detain a 37-year-old foreigner, who had illegally exchanged cryptocurrencies for fiat money in Minsk. The Investigative Committee (IC) of Belarus reported this on June 12.

Material on the website of the Investigative Committee

What else is known? According to the investigators, the foreign citizen has been engaged in business activities related to the acquisition (disposition) of cryptocurrency (digital signs, tokens) and foreign currency in the interests of third parties, without state registration as a resident of the High-Tech Park.

The IC noted that the criminal scheme has been used since 2019 in several countries, including the UAE, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. In Belarus alone, the man received more than $3,56 million in income from individuals.

Law enforcers managed to detain his partner, and the defendants in the case were charged with tax evasion on a large scale and complicity as an organizer in tax evasion on a large scale of the Criminal Code of Belarus.

In March this year, the illegal crypto exchange BS Change with a turnover of $34 million was closed in Kazakhstan. In addition, five more illegal services were closed in that country in January.

According to Positive Technologies, the number of fraudulent crypto exchanges in Russia has increased threefold over the year. And one of the most popular ways to cheat is the creation of fake aggregators of exchangers in order to divert users to fake services.

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