March 29, 2024

Europol seizes assets of Bitzlato executives for 70 million euros

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Europol seizes assets of Bitzlato executives for 70 million euros

European law enforcement officers confiscated the crypto wallets of the top executives of the Bitzlato exchange, and also froze accounts on exchanges in the amount of more than 50 million euros.

After Arrest 
Anatoly Legkodymov, the majority owner of the exchanger, who is considered the chief administrator of Bitzlato, was detained four more people.Among them are the general director of the site, the financial director, the marketing director and another employee, whose position was not named.

In total, Europol carried out eight house searches, four in Spain, one in the United States, two in Portugal and another in Cyprus.Crypto wallets, vehicles, and equipment worth $19.5 million were confiscated.More than a hundred accounts on exchanges were also frozen, with total assets estimated at 70 million euros.

According to Europol, in total, more than 2 billion euros passed through Bitzlato, and almost half of the exchange's customers (46%) are considered criminals.Most of the transactions involved entities that were sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).Now law enforcement officers are studying the infrastructure of Bitzlato in detail.

"We've already found 3,500 bitcoin addresses and more than 1,000 user data that sendto other criminal cases around the world registered in our systems.The analysis of this data will entail the launch of new criminal cases," the reportEuropol.

Earlier, analysts announced that the decline in the value of major cryptocurrencies by capitalization could have been affected by the US Department of Justice's charge of money laundering brought against Bitzlato.