Australian citizen accused of illegal exchange of cryptocurrencies for $ 3 million

New South Wales police have arrested an Australian citizen on suspicion of illegal cryptocurrency exchangeworth $ 3 million

As reported by 9News Australia, detectives from the departmentNew South Wales (NSW) Cyber ​​Crime has arrested and charged a woman, whose name has not been released, after searching her car near a Sydney shopping centre. During the search, law enforcement officers found $38,736 in cash and 3.8 BTC in a hardware wallet.

Head of CybercrimeMatt Craft said it was the first arrest made by his unit for “non-compliant digital currency service providers” in the state and possibly the first of its kind in Australia.

“This will be the first of many arrests I believe we will make in the coming years,” — Kraft said.

The arrest followed a series of investigations,conducted by a special cybercrime group established at the end of 2018 to investigate money laundering transactions on the Internet. It is assumed that the arrested woman is a member of a syndicate laundering illegally obtained income through cryptocurrencies.

Law enforcement agencies seized cryptocurrencyBTC wallets worth the equivalent of $11,749, as well as storage devices, computers and mobile phones during a search of homes in Hurtsville and Sydney immediately after the woman's arrest.

The investigation was carried out in collaboration withby the Australian Financial Transactions Accountability and Analysis Center (AUSTRAC) and the Australian Crime Commission (ACIC). The woman was charged with three counts, including willfully concealing the proceeds of crime and violating requirements relating to digital currency exchange services. Police said that since 2017, the accused has carried out transactions with BTC amounting to more than $3 million.

Let us recall that at the end of last year, Australian authorities received a twenty-fold profit from BTC seized as a result of the illegal sale of firearms using cryptocurrencies.

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