The US Division of Justice (DOJ) sentenced an Indian nationwide to 121 months in jail for his involvement in a cryptocurrency cash laundering scheme. Anurag Pramod Murarka laundered $20 million value of cryptocurrencies via the darknet and the notorious worldwide hawala community.
Murarka ran his scheme utilizing aliases on the darknet named “elonmuskwhm” and “la2nyc” and operated as a cryptocurrency vendor. He facilitated the laundering of over $20 million value of cryptocurrency proceeds linked to prison actions. He guided the drug mafia and hackers to deposit their funds obtained by unlawful actions. The 30-year-old then doled out the funds to purchasers throughout the US.
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$20 Million Cryptocurrency Laundering: Right here’s How It Operated
After agreeing on an change fee with the purchasers, he instructed them to ship cryptocurrency to a particular pockets handle. The funds would then be transformed into money and disbursed to them via varied strategies. The strategies embrace inserting money between a truck filled with books and likewise in sealed envelopes. The opposite type of technique Murarka used was the worldwide hawala community.
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“As soon as the change fee had been set, Murarka, situated in India, directed his clients to ship cryptocurrency to sure cryptocurrency addresses. Murarka then labored via a fancy, pre-arranged hawala operation emanating out of India to rearrange for money to be delivered to his staff in the US,” stated the US Justice Division throughout his sentencing to 121 months in jail.
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“Murarka’s community of staff all through the US and abroad would accumulate money from Murarka’s hawala connections after which bundle the money in quite a lot of methods, together with between the pages of books and sealed in a number of envelopes, earlier than mailing the money to the shopper. The defendant supplied his help to numerous different criminals as they tried to hide their stolen cash and unlawful drug proceeds,” stated U.S. Lawyer Carlton S. Shier, IV.