Game changer in crypto: US agency jails exchange owner or facilitating money laundering!
Imagine the US government jailing the Russian owner of a crypto exchange in Greece for "willfully violating U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) laws".
Now stop imagining - because its real!
A federal institution called "FinCEN" (never heard of them before, but I am not a US citizen), released a statement, that is very clearly showing the US agencies have chosen to define crypto services as being money laundering services.
At least this is my conclusion given, that I do not know BTC-e and never used it, but being an exchange, all they did was actually allow users to trade cryptos, right?
This is about not following KYC rules - so its about not allowing anonymous identities and transaction systems
So this game changer means a lot to anyone in the crypto sphere, correct?
It seems, I either get my small crypto assets left on some exchanges in own wallets, or I just - well - give up on them, because Bittrex, Bitfinex and Polo also never asked me for any KYC data...and the FinCEN does not have to call Greece for assistance, there...
On other news - looking at CoinMarketCap all seems fine/green, today.
What a week, so far! ;-)
Seems the guy was really laundering money, after all - and not a general suspicion by the FinCEN as I had interpreted... ashamed-me ;-)
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/russian-national-and-bitcoin-exchange-charged-21-count-indictment-operating-alleged
Great article! Very insightful.
Thanks - but I must confess, I was a bit too quick. Seems the story is less ... dangerous in general, but the guy really a proven crook...