Australian Arrested for Running An Unregistered Crypto Exchange, His Bitcoin ATM Was Also Seized

The Australian E-Crime Squad detectives have caught a 38-year-old man from Cairnlea. He was conducting unregistered crypto exchanges. The arrest followed an investigation that started after illegal activity was registered at a cryptocurrency ATM close to Braybrook, not too far from Cairnlea. The ATM was seized too.

Cash and False ID Documents Were Found at the Place of the Arrest

The man was arrested at his home, where the police had found substantial cash and false ID documents. The authorities started the investigation back in June of this year, when AUSTRAC, which is short for the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, had detected scam activity at the seized ATM. AUSTRAC is a governmental intelligence agency that has the task of monitoring transactions. On November 1^st, 2018, he was handed a cease and desist notification by the AUSTRAC, but he didn’t stop using the Braybrook ATM for unregistered crypto exchange services.

Australia’s E-Crime Squad is Used with Cryptocurrency Scammers

The Australian law enforcement squad for internet scams is familiar with handling illegal crypto activities. Actually, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is also known as ACCC, stated earlier in August this year that Australians are at high risk for being scammed when investing in cryptocurrency, seeing that many of them have already lost $14.76 million from January to July 2019. Authorities in Australia have managed to arrest 5 people involved in a cryptocurrency investment scam that had more than 100 people losing about $2.7 million. In July 2019, a couple from the same country were in the news, saying they lost not less than $900,000 after getting tricked by crypto scammers.

Alerted by all the illegal activities in the cryptocurrency financial sector, Australian authorities are monitoring Facebook’s crypto plans as a precaution measure.