{"id":72761,"date":"2023-01-19T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T09:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=72761"},"modified":"2025-09-09T10:10:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:10:16","slug":"us-authorities-arrest-founder-of-bitzlato-crypto-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/us-authorities-arrest-founder-of-bitzlato-crypto-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"US authorities arrest founder of Bitzlato crypto platform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Department of Justice has announced the arrest of the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato, Anatoly Legkodymov, on charges of laundering $700 million tied to the Hydra darknet marketplace.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Founder and Majority Owner of Bitzlato, a Cryptocurrency Exchange, Charged with Unlicensed Money Transmitting <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ojZq9TRF5M\">https:\/\/t.co\/ojZq9TRF5M<\/a> (Announced with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheJusticeDept?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TheJusticeDept<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NewYorkFBI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@NewYorkFBI<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 US Attorney EDNY (@EDNYnews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EDNYnews\/status\/1615758707777732618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 18, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As part of the case on January 17, the <span data-descr=\"Federal Bureau of Investigation\" class=\"old_tooltip\">FBI<\/span> detained in Miami (Florida) a Russian citizen residing in China.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Justice conducted the case in cooperation with French law enforcement. Belgian and Dutch colleagues, along with Interpol, assisted.<\/p>\n<p>According to the statement, the 40-year-old Legkodymov, nicknamed \u201cGandalf,\u201d ran a money-transfer business that \u201ctransferred illicit funds and violated American regulatory requirements, including anti-money-laundering rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u00abHydra Market users exchanged more than $700 million in cryptocurrency with Bitzlato directly or through intermediaries, until the marketplace was <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/german-police-confiscated-hydra-servers-and-seized-543-btc\">closed by law enforcement<\/a> in the United States and Germany in April 2022. Bitzlato also received more than $15 million in ransomware proceeds\u00bb, \u2014 according to the statement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to U.S. law enforcement, Legkodymov deliberately built the operation of a Hong Kong-registered platform with a policy of \u201cno selfie, no passport.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors found in correspondence confirmations that the Bitzlato founder and other managers understood that the absence of <span data-descr=\"Know Your Customer \u2014 know your customer\" class=\"old_tooltip\">KYC<\/span> would mean a flow of \u201cdirty money\u201d through the platform. One colleague warned Legkodymov that \u201cthe client base consists of drug addicts buying substances on Hydra\u201d and drug traffickers.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the case, French authorities together with partners from Spain, Portugal and Cyprus arrested the exchange\u2019s infrastructure. The site shows a \u201cstub\u201d informing of enforcement actions against Bitzlato.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/zp0ZsoCp5tNSDv7BD9zdiZ2Gy8TGcXUfJI70c_Mb4txf1xzMZROk51CFLxo1OZMWZVP2icRD3YeggTJL0pP1CqVaR4fm9ze0gUeXcetb9z6x5qvVjshY3kjF0wr-FRggQ9Cn1UTKdpf0YAVTubQY9ozI_T3st5hO24uEqRMY5J7hZI43r-v4cfdPwyprIw\" alt=\"US authorities arrest founder of Bitzlato crypto platform\"\/><figcaption>Screenshot of the main Bitzlato Russian-language homepage at the time of writing. Source: bitzlato.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On January 18, the Bitzlato team <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/bitzlato-reports-breach-after-hack\">reported a hack<\/a> and withdrawal of part of the funds. A few hours later, the platform announced that the service had suspended operations.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco called the operation against Bitzlato \u201ca significant blow to the crypto-criminal ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u00abToday&#8217;s actions send a plain message: whether you violate our laws from China, Europe or abuse our financial system from a tropical island \u2014 you can expect to answer for your crimes in a United States courtroom\u00bb, she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to the charges, he faces up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-text-wrappers-update-2 article_update\"><time class=\"gtb_text-wrappers_update_time\">19 January 2023 | 11:53<\/time><span class=\"gtb_text-wrappers_update_head\">Update: <\/span><\/p>\n<p>According to FinCEN, among Bitzlato\u2019s major counterparties, besides Hydra, are the crypto pyramid \u201cFiniko,\u201d the P2P platform Local Bitcoins and the Binance exchange. A Binance spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company \u201cprovided substantial assistance to international law enforcement in support of this investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Earlier, in August 2022, French authorities <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/vinnik-transported-to-the-united-states-shortly-after-extradition-to-greece\">extradited to the United States<\/a> Russian Alexander Vinnik. He is suspected of laundering $4 billion through the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e.<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog\u2019s bitcoin news on our <a href=\"https:\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato, Anatoly Legkodymov, on charges of laundering $700 million tied to the Hydra darknet marketplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1635,1444,26],"class_list":["post-72761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitzlato","tag-law-enforcement","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"26","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72763,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72761\/revisions\/72763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}