Crypto Money-Laundering Ring Taken Down By Spanish Police

Crypto money-laundering ring that offered services to criminal enterprises has successfully been taken down in Spain. The Spanish Civil Guard managed to dismantle the group which laundered about $10.08 million according to the coming altcoin news.

Eight people were arrested related to the crime and eight more were charged for involvement. The Guarda Civil found wallets that had 9 million euros which were frozen. About 20 hot wallets and four cold wallets were retrieved and as the Europol statement points out:

 “Spanish authorities froze four ‘cold wallets’ and 20 ‘hot wallets’, to which €9 million was transferred, as well as several bank accounts.”

For the crypto money-laundering scheme, the Crime as Service enterprise actually offered crypto exchanges services and was dubbed as a crypto exchange business. This was a key element in the operation and was crucial due to changing fiat currency into crypto for their clients. The crypto exchange business had two bitcoin ATMs which were used to deposit fiat and later convert it in crypto.

The crypto money-laundering ring also employed other layering techniques that are common for money laundering activities. The smurfing methods involve splitting the dirty money into multiple tranches. They also would later deposit the portions into a couple of bank accounts that were owned by the gang. The layering method involves moving the funds via few accounts before exchanging it for bitcoin.

As the latest cryptocurrency news report, the gang had multiple corporate entities which were later used to make large deposits in the bank accounts. Further, from those bank accounts, funds would end up wired to crypto exchanges that are based outside of the country. Besides the bitcoin wallets which were frozen, the two ATMs were also seized along with cash that reached up to 17,000 euros. Also, 11 cars, electronic devices, computers, and other properties were seized.

This is not the only crypto money-laundering incident that emerges in the headlines in the recent past. Only last month, the U.S Department of Justice charged two men who allegedly administered the Deep Dot Web. Both of the accused were arrested on different continents. The Deep Dot Web listings site generated revenues from referral sales and offered dark web marketplace services to users.