- A London pair has been arrested for allegedly running an illegal exchange in the city that traded more than £1 billion in cryptocurrency. A search at the individuals’ offices and residential properties unearthed digital assets exchanged on their platform.
Also read: Turkish crypto kingpin Faruk Fatih Ozer starts 11,000 year jail term
The latest arrest follow a global crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry, where several individuals have been arrested for money laundering and other financial crimes carried out through digital asset exchanges.
Authorities want London & UK clean of illegal exchanges
According to a Sky News report, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) searched the pair’s offices in London. Metropolitan police also searched two residents where they discovered some digital assets.
Executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, Therese Chambers highlighted the FCA’s role in keeping “dirty money out of the UK financial system.”
“These arrests show we will do everything in our power to stop crypto firms operating illegally in the UK.”
Chambers.
The pair, 38 and 44 were interviewed before they were released on bail as investigations continue, according to the FCA. The two are believed to have traded digital assets worth over a billion dollars on their illegal platform.
Authorities tighten screws on exchanges
The latest London arrests come at a time authorities world over are coming after offenders following the collapse of the biggest exchanges resulting in millions of people losing their investments in cryptocurrencies.
One of the prominent cases includes the implosion of the Sam Bankman-Fried-ran exchange FTX, which resulted in the incarceration of the crypto kingpin for 25 years in prison for defrauding investors.
Also read: 10 Best UK Crypto Exchanges – Tried & Tested
Another high-profile case involves the founder and former CEO of Thodex, Faruk Fatih Ozer who was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison for swindling investors of their money through his exchange, which used to be one of Turkey’s biggest crypto exchanges.
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, founder of Binance was slapped with a four-month jail term for allowing fraudsters to launder money using his platform. He pleaded guilty to breaking money laundering laws in the US.
Meanwhile, the FCA has a list with over 13,000 businesses the regulator suspects to be operating illegally in the UK. Its register of authorized crypto companies numbers 45.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Enacy Mapakame
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