The founder of the Bitzlato cryptocurrency exchange, Anatoly Legkodymov, who is under arrest in the United States, intends to plead guilty and strike a deal with prosecutors. This is reported by the Telegram channel Baza citing court documents.
The documents indicate that the parties are currently negotiating a guilty plea, which, in their view, could resolve the case without going to trial.
The FBI accuses the Russian national of “running a money-transfer business not registered in the United States, linked to non-compliance with anti-money-laundering laws”.
Investigators believe that the founder knew about the illicit origin of the funds, but deliberately continued operations and neglected KYC/AML-procedures.
According to предположению, Baza, Legkodymov’s arrival in the United States could have been part of a deal with the FBI, as the total potential prison term for the charges does not exceed five years.
On January 17, the US Department of Justice arrested the founder of Bitzlato, Anatoly Legkodymov, on charges of laundering $700 million related to the dark-net marketplace Hydra. A day later, the service’s operation was suspended.
Later, it became known of the arrest of former chief executive Mikhail Lunyev, marketing manager Alexander Goncharenko, Monolithos DAO implementation contractor Pavel Lerner, and the platform’s system administrator.
As ForkLog lawyers later stated, all those arrested were not part of the team, but were either contractors or consultants; some of them had never participated in the company’s core activities.
According to Europol, the exchange converted assets tied to criminal activity totaling around €1 billion ($1.08 billion).
Since March 20, Bitzlato web version and app users have gained access to partial withdrawals.