Chile pulls Plusspay license over money laundering, Tren de Aragua ties

The cryptocurrency platform, Plusspay, has had its registration revoked by Chilean regulators after investigators tied the company to a laundering operation run by Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua.

With the registration canceled, Plusspay has been stripped of any ability to serve clients in the country. It is also expected to return all deposits to customers. 

What happened to Plusspay?

Chile’s financial regulator, the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF), announced on June 26 that it was revoking the registration of Inversiones Plusservice SpA, the company behind the Plusspay crypto platform. The decision strips the firm of its ability to serve clients in the country and forces it to return any customer funds it is still holding.

Plusspay was a cryptocurrency platform that advertised itself as a regulated financial service in Chile. However, it only had a registration, not the full authorization needed to operate.

Cryptopolitan previously reported that the company accepted deposits in Chilean pesos and converted them into stablecoins, primarily Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). Investigators say Plusspay then routed these crypto funds to foreign wallets and bank accounts.

Prosecutors have connected more than $84 million in suspicious transactions to this network. The funds allegedly came from criminal activities linked to the Tren de Aragua gang, including extortion and drug trafficking.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) classified Tren de Aragua as a global criminal organization back in 2024.

The founder of the platform, Jose Manuel Rios Guaido, a 38-year-old Venezuelan national, is now on the run after an arrest warrant was issued by the Southern Metropolitan Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

Prosecutors say Rios Guaido used a network of shell companies with the “Bex” brand name, such as BexGroup SpA, BexDigital Services SpA, Bexpay Business Enterprises SpA, to hide the money flow through the Chilean banking system.

A related company with the same address was also found in Florida.

Rios Guaido co-founded the company in 2021 and officially launched the Plusspay platform in 2023 to offer crypto custody and brokerage services. Plusspay has been ordered to stop onboarding new users, but the company still has permission to return all deposits to users.

Can exchanges operate in Chile without being fully approved?

The CMF has clarified that under Chile’s Fintech Law, a company must register in the CMF’s fintech registry, and then get a separate authorization before it is allowed to actually operate.

Plusspay did register in early 2024, but it didn’t complete the second phase of approval before it began to advertise itself as CMF-regulated.

Unauthorized platforms reportedly routinely operate as though they hold full licenses, and the CMF lacks the legal authority to shut them down directly. It can flag violations to prosecutors and cancel registrations as it did with Plusspay, but it cannot unilaterally close a fintech.

The CMF is now reviewing all the companies in its fintech registry to confirm that they are in compliance with the requirements. Several companies besides Plusspay have already been flagged for failing to meet updated information requirements.

Under the Fintech Law, operating without proper authorization is a serious infraction, and doing so while committing fraud is an aggravating factor in criminal proceedings.

Cryptopolitan reported that weeks earlier, the Chilean police arrested nearly 20 people in a separate laundering ring that moved up to $88 million through bank accounts and crypto remittances. Prosecutor Héctor Barros called that operation “one of the largest money laundering cases we have seen in our country.”