A federal jury in Washington has convicted the Russian-Swedish operator of cryptocurrency mixing service Bitcoin Fog.
The Department of Justice announced in a statement that Roman Sterlingoff was found guilty of money laundering conspiracy, decoy money laundering, operating an unauthorized money transfer business, and violating the D.C. Money Transfer Act.
The jury also found that related assets included $349,625 worth of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Monero (XMR), and Stellar (XLM) stored in the Kraken account and 1,354 BTC stored in the Bitcoin Fog wallet. It also gave the go-ahead for the US government to confiscate crypto assets.
Evidence shows that Sterlingoff operated Bitcoinfog from October 2011 to April 2021. The jury found that during this period, the cryptocurrency mixer moved more than 1.2 million BTC, worth approximately $400 million at the time of the transaction.
According to the Department of Justice, most of the funds came from darknet markets such as Agora, Silk Road, Silk Road 2.0, Evolution, and AlphaBay, and are related to illegal drugs, computer fraud and abuse, and identity theft. That's what it means.
“At launch, Starlingoff promoted Bitcoin Fog as a tool to anonymize Bitcoin transactions and evade law enforcement. His site charged customers a service fee.
Based on long-term Bitcoin Fog trading activity, Sterlingoff earned millions of dollars in fees from Bitcoin Fog transactions. ”
Law enforcement authorities discovered Sterlingoff's ties to Bitcoinfog after analyzing information obtained from several cryptocurrency exchanges. Records revealed that the majority of the deposits in Starlingoff's real-name account were linked to a Bitcoin cluster associated with a cryptocurrency mixing service.
“Although the identity of a BTC address owner is generally anonymous (unless the owner chooses to make the information public), evidence in court can help law enforcement identify specific Bitcoin addresses by analyzing the blockchain. We have proven that it is possible to identify the owner of
Mr. Starlingoff has been in custody since his arrest at Los Angeles International Airport on April 27, 2021.
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