IRS names the biggest crypto cases of 2023

The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Criminal Investigation division опубликовало a list of ten of the department’s most well-known and high-profile cases in 2023 — four of which relate to digital assets.

In eighth place was Amir Bruno Elmaani, the founder of the Bruno Block crypto project. In 2017 he launched the Oyster Pearl coin, designed as a utility token for an online data-storage platform.

“Elmaani did not file a tax return and reported no income in 2018. However, he spent more than $10 million on the purchase of several yachts, including $1.6 million on a carbon-fiber yacht, hundreds of thousands of dollars at a hardware store, and more than $700,000 on the purchase of two homes,” the IRS explained.

He was sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $5.5 million.

The seventh item on the list is James Zhong, the defendant in the Silk Road theft case. In April his was sentenced to a year and one day in prison for withdrawing 50,000 BTC from the platform in 2012.

Authorities also seized all assets tied to the stolen assets from Zhong, which were valued at $3.4 billion.

In fourth place was New Hampshire resident Ian Freeman for money laundering using Bitcoin. According to the IRS, the man helped launder $10 million for various online scammers.

Freeman was sentenced to 96 months in prison and two years of probation. He was also ordered to pay restitution to the victims.

In third place was Karl Sebastian Greenwood, co-founder of the OneCoin cryptocurrency pyramid, accused of international fraud of $4 billion. The project was initially pitched as a high-yield cryptocurrency, but the coin was never launched.

In December 2022 Greenwood pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay about $300 million in fines and restitution.

Over the past year, roughly half of IRS cryptocurrency investigations have formed tax-underpayment cases, whereas three years ago more than 90% were related to money laundering.

In December the IRS demanded from FTX to pay $24 billion. Lawyers for the fallen exchange intend to appeal the “absurd” ruling.