California man pleads guilty to laundering $13 million through an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange

U.S. authorities charged a California resident with running an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange and money laundering. He pleaded guilty, according to the Department of Justice’s website.

Forty-nine-year-old Ugo Mehia from Ontario launched the service in May 2018 and ran it until September 2020. During this period, platform users swapped assets totaling more than $13 million.

The operator did not register the service with FinCEN, and also opened several companies to conceal illicit activity.

Mehia advertised the platform online, and met clients in person at cafés and corresponded via encrypted messaging services.

From May 2019 to March 2020, the operator repeatedly liaised with an undercover buyer connected to law enforcement. He told Mehia that he was working with a drug dealer from Australia and agreed to exchange $82,000 for 14.273 BTC. In total, the undercover buyer conducted five transactions totaling more than $250,000.

After his arrest and the filing of charges, the operator pled guilty and waived the illicit assets. Authorities seized silver bars and coins, cryptocurrency worth $95,587, and $230,000 in cash.

Mehia will appear before the U.S. district court in March. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

In a separate case, the owner of the RG Coins cryptocurrency exchange, Rossena Iosifova was found guilty of money laundering and involvement in a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme. He received a 10-year sentence.

In December, Spanish police, together with Europol, detained 23 suspects in money laundering of the ‘Russian mafia’.

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