The security forces detained two men who were charged with illegal activities. During the searches, investigators seized money, cryptocurrency and digital storage media.
Since 2019, two men, a 37-year-old foreigner and his 35-year-old acquaintance, have been working without registration as High-Tech Park (HTP) residents. The investigation alleges that the defendants ran a cryptocurrency exchange business in the UAE, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Tajikistan.
Both detainees were charged with large-scale tax evasion. The total illegal income of the suspects is estimated at 9 million Belarusian rubles (about 220 million rubles).
One of the detainees stated that the activity of the exchanger in Minsk brought a monthly net income of about $7,000.
A 41-year-old resident of Minsk, who is a counterparty of the liquidated crypto exchange, was also detained. The investigation assures that the man himself was engaged in similar illegal activities through an automated chat bot in Telegram. The income of the third detainee is estimated at 7.5 million Belarusian rubles (210 million rubles).
Recently, the authorities of Belarus fined two residents of Minsk for the shadow circulation of cryptocurrencies. Mining, purchase and sale of tokens by individuals is not prohibited in Belarus. However, business of exchange and trade is prohibited. Such activities may in certain cases be regarded as complicity in criminal offenses such as drug trafficking or money laundering. Then a resident of Belarus may face a prison term for organizing a cryptocurrency exchanger.
At the beginning of the year, one organizer of a cryptocurrency exchange in Belarus was fined $1 million.
Source: Bits
I am an experienced journalist, writer, and editor with a passion for finance and business news. I have been working in the journalism field for over 6 years, covering a variety of topics from finance to technology. As an author at World Stock Market, I specialize in finance business-related topics.
