Eight People Apprehended in Spain For Crypto Money Laundering Scheme

Despite how transparent Bitcoin is, people still keep using it for crimes. Eight people were arrested in Spain recently for an alleged money laundering scheme which was said to involve cryptocurrencies, according to the Europol.

The official release affirmed that the group participated in money laundering by exchanging fiat to crypto. They used several ATMs in order to split the funds so they would not be found by the police. Then they used the smaller sums of money to introduce them to the financial system without the transactions being seen as suspicious, at least at first.

According to the police’s report, the participants of the money laundering group often carried only cash and used many bank accounts in order to move them around several exchanges before they made the crypto exchanges. They also wired some money to crypto exchanges and transferred large sums to their own corporate account using the system.

During the police investigations, several houses were searched and a lot of money was found, as well as seven vehicles and nearly 200 cannabis plants, which are illegal in Spain. The criminals also had crypto ATMs and jewels, which were all taken by the police. The Spanish police also seized cold crypto wallets and 20 hot wallets.

Some of the alleged criminals were involved in selling illegal drugs and then laundered the money in order to cloak their activities from the government.

In a very similar case which also used Bitcoin, Cyrus R. Vance, the Manhattan District Attorney, also reported that two of the men pleaded guilty for selling the drugs and controlled substances and that they laundered millions of dollars.