The founder of the exchange Bitzlato arrested in the US

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Yesterday, January 18, it became known about the hacking of the peer-to-peer exchange service Bitzlato.However, it seems that the situation is more complicated - the US Department of Justice has arrested the co-founder of the exchanger, Anatoly Legodimov.

Peer-to-peer exchange Bitzlato is registered inHong Kong, but according to US law enforcement, the exchanger remains closely linked to Russia. In addition, the Bitzlato service was one of the main ones for laundering money from the Hydra market on the darknet. The US Department of Justice says that illegal transactions totaling over $700 million were carried out through the service.

The report partially confirms the informationChainalisys company dated February 2022. Then analysts wrote that the service received $206 million in assets from darknet markets, another $224.5 million was processed in the form of transactions from various cryptocurrency scams, and $9 million in assets were transferred by hackers.

“We worked with key partners both inUS and internationally to stop the China-based money laundering service Bitzlato. It fueled cryptocurrency criminals. If you violate our laws or harm our financial system, whether you are in China, Europe or a tropical island, you will answer for your crimes in a US court,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

Let us remind you that yesterday representatives of the sitestated that the service was hacked, but the hackers managed to withdraw only a small amount of funds, so the operation of the exchanger will soon be restored.