The owner and manager of the RG Coins cryptocurrency exchange Rossen Iossifov was sentenced to ten years in prison for laundering $ 5 million through crypto assets for fraudulent online auctions.
According to a US Department of Justice press release, Judge Robert Weir has sentenced Bulgarian citizen Rossen Iossifov to ten years in prison. Iossifov was convicted of conspiracy to commit a crime and money laundering.
He was deliberately running a business that helped criminals launder the proceeds of fraud. Iossifov’s five main clients in Bulgaria belonged to the criminal organization Alexandria Online Auction Fraud (AOAF). To date, 17 members of the AOAF network have been convicted of participating in the scheme.
Operators of fraudulent online auctions carried out a “large-scale” operation to defraud at least 900 US citizens. Romania-based AOAF members posted false advertisements on eBay and Craigslist for high-value items, usually cars that didn’t really exist.
After the victims sent the payment, the money was laundered using cryptocurrency accepted on behalf of local partners, who then transferred funds to criminals abroad. According to the Ministry of Justice, Iosifov earned more than $ 184,000 from these transactions.
According to the court’s order, Iossifov helped in the implementation of the last stage in the scheme of the criminal network. In less than three years, he laundered about $ 5 million in cryptocurrency for AOAF members. As part of the scheme, a total of more than $ 7 million was stolen from victims in the United States.
Recall that Rossen Iosifov was arrested for fraud and money laundering through cryptocurrencies in September last year.
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