TL;DR Breakdown
- RG Coins crypto platform operator jailed for his role in crypto scam.
- 17 other principal officers of the exchange arrested with three still at large.
Rossen Iossifov, who operated a Bulgarian crypto exchange, has bagged a 10-year jail term after he was found guilty of laundering money for a cybercrime syndicate.
The RG Coins crypto exchange platform operator was convicted September last year (2020). He was found guilty after a two-week trial upon conviction.
In his recent sentence, which was pronounced on Tuesday, the US department of justice found the crypto exchange operator guilty of participating in an elaborate money laundering conspiracy with theft of over $6.5 million from over 800 million US residents recorded.
The Bulgarian national and his accomplice also ran an advert on auction platforms like Craigslist and eBay for luxury items that never existed. The proceeds from these adverts were moved via crypto to their criminal organizations.
Other crimes of Iossifov, RG Coins crypto exchange operator
The Justice Department also punished Iossifov for laundering money for the AOAF, a known cybercrime syndicate based in Eastern Europe. The exchange operator moved a total of $5 million in dirty money through the RG Coins platform in exchange for cryptocurrencies.
His crypto platform obeyed no Know Your Customer policies as Iossifov earned himself $184,000 from the proceeds of these money laundering transactions.
RG Coins crypto exchange had 20 principal officers, with 17 of them currently arrested. Iossifov’s sentence was the longest, however, as authorities hunt for the other three actors in the scheme who are at large.
Iossifov does not mark as the first crypto exchange operator to be imprisoned for laundering money and abating criminals. Last year, Alexander Vinnik was imprisoned by a court in France for aiding a BTC e-money laundering scam.
