Belarus shuts down illegal Bitcoin exchange with $3.5m in revenue

In Minsk, authorities dismantled a major illegal cryptocurrency exchange, whose revenues amounted to at least 9 million Belarusian rubles (over $3.5 million). сообщили to the Belarusian Investigative Committee.

Law enforcement authorities detained two men, who are charged with operating an illegal cryptocurrency exchange and tax evasion.

According to the investigation materials, the exchange operated since 2019 without the necessary registration as a resident of the Hi-Tech Park. In addition to Belarus, the defendants conducted exchange business in the UAE, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Tajikistan.

During searches of the office and suspects’ residences, investigators seized cash, cryptocurrency and digital storage devices. According to one of the detainees, the Minsk-based exchange yielded a net monthly income of about $7,000.

Operatives also detained a counterparty of the liquidated exchange who conducted activity via an automated Telegram chat bot. His earnings reached 7.5 million Belarusian rubles ($2.9 million), and the amount of unpaid taxes exceeded 1.2 million Belarusian rubles ($475,000).

Moreover, according to the Investigative Committee, more than 30% of the operations took place on darknet marketplaces, which could indicate that they financed their criminal activity.

Earlier in May, the National Police of Ukraine, in cooperation with the FBI, blocked nine cryptocurrency exchanges that were used to launder criminal funds.