The authorities of America have alleged Ryan Farace (a resident of Baltimore) of laundering approximately 2,933 Bitcoin (BTC) from October 2019 to April 2021. Subsequently, the accused was imprisoned in 2018. Then he seemingly operated the criminal actions from jail.
‘Xanaxman’ trading BTC even from jail
Baltimore Sun states that Maryland’s state officials had leveled charges on “Xanaxman” (username of Ryan Farace) for laundering up to 2,933 Bitcoin within less than three years’ time. According to the current prices, this amount counts more than $136M. The criminal, along with his father, is presently in-between their prison sentence of 57 months for trading Alprazolam (a tranquilizer used in treating panic disorders and anxiety). For trading the drug, Farace operated through the notorious Dark Web; however, he got caught by the police in 2018.
He was additionally ordered to forfeit $5.6M earned out of illegal operations as a part of the sentence. Moreover, he was also directed to pay off his holdings in cryptocurrency, which were approximately 4,000 BTC.
The investigators do not exactly if the previously mentioned 2,933 coins are including in the preliminary 4,000 BTC. They recorded that the accused might have held even more crypto assets about which the government did not have any idea initially. The 37-year-old criminal pursued release on the grounds of compassion, mentioning bad health as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the authorities denied his appeal; thus, he is still in prison.
Bitcoin Fog’s head laundered over $336M in BTC
It is worth mentioning that the previously discussed case is not a separate event. In April, it was reported that Roman Sterlingov, the head of Bitcoin Fog (an infamous bitcoin anonymizer), was arrested by the USA Federal Service. The charge leveled against him was that he had supposedly laundered up to $336M in crypto assets during the period of 10 years. For doing so, he allegedly sold protection services for keeping the interested consumers’ digital assets under extreme security. In return, he charged 2% to 2.5%. According to the calculations of the IRS, the accused concealed the funds and utilized them for building the server of Bitcoin Fog.
These activities made the authorities anxious, and the investigation disclosed the criminal actions of Sterlingov during the previous decade. A computer engineer at University College London named ‘Sarah Meiklejohn’ appreciated this technique of following the money by which the investigators remained successful.
