Europol has arrested 5 of Bitzlato’s senior executives, including the CEO, financial director, and marketing director in Spain.
The sanctioned Bitzlato exchange’s top five executives were detained, according to the European Union police agency (Europol). The CEO, financial director, and marketing director in Spain were among the individuals detained, according to the EU agency on January 23.
Following eight house searches in Spain, Cyprus, Portugal, and the US, the arrest was made. During the home search, according to Europol, it frozen more than 100 bitcoin accounts holding assets worth around €50 million ($54.3 million) and seized about €18 million ($19.5 million) in cryptocurrencies.
According to Europol, Bitzlato made it possible to launder a variety of digital assets, including 119 Bitcoin worth €2.1 billion.Europol’s further investigation revealed that around 46% of the assets traded through Bitzlato, valued about €1 billion ($1.08 billion), had connections to illicit activity.
The US government detained Anatoly Legkodymov, the creator of Bitzlato, on January 18 for operating a money-transfer business. Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance was also listed as one of the top three recipients of Bitzlato’s illicit cash. This recent operations comes amid a wave of growing law enforcement action within the cryptocurrency industry.
