{"id":72940,"date":"2023-01-23T18:00:13","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=72940"},"modified":"2025-09-09T11:19:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T08:19:44","slug":"europol-bitzlato-converted-more-than-1-billion-of-assets-linked-to-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/europol-bitzlato-converted-more-than-1-billion-of-assets-linked-to-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Europol: Bitzlato converted more than $1 billion of assets linked to crime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Bitzlato cryptocurrency exchange converted assets tied to criminal activity worth around \u20ac1 billion ($1.08 billion). <a href=\"https:\/\/www.europol.europa.eu\/media-press\/newsroom\/news\/bitzlato-senior-management-arrested\">\u0415\u0432\u0440\u043e\u043f\u043e\u043b<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n<p>According to the authorities, the transactions were conducted in Bitcoin, Dash, Litecoin, as well as dollars and Russian rubles.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Europol announced the arrest of Bitzlato&#8217;s CEO, CFO and CMO in Spain, and two more senior platform executives in Cyprus and the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities searched homes in Spain, Cyprus and Portugal, and shut down the company&#8217;s digital infrastructure in France. \u20ac18 million ($19.5 million) in cryptocurrencies, vehicles and electronics were seized. A further \u20ac50 million ($54.3 million) in digital assets were frozen on other exchanges.<\/p>\n<p>According to Europol, illicit funds account for about 46% of the \u20ac2.1 billion ($2.3 billion) the platform received.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on January 17, the U.S. Department of Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/us-authorities-arrest-founder-of-bitzlato-crypto-platform\">arrested the founder of Bitzlato<\/a> Anatoly Legkodymov on charges of laundering $700 million tied to Hydra.<\/p>\n<p>On January 18, the platform team <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/bitzlato-reports-breach-after-hack\">stated that there had been a hack and withdrawal of part of the funds<\/a>. Within a few hours, they announced that the service would be suspended.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/binance-hydra-and-finiko-named-leading-counterparties-in-bitzlato-case\">Binance, Hydra and \u00abFiniko\u00bb<\/a> are named the leading counterparties in the Bitzlato case.<\/p>\n<p>Read ForkLog&#8217;s bitcoin news on our <a href=\"https:\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 cryptocurrency news, rates and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bitzlato cryptocurrency exchange converted assets tied to criminal activity worth around \u20ac1 billion ($1.08 billion).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72941,"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":[1635,1154,1444],"class_list":["post-72940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitzlato","tag-crimes","tag-law-enforcement"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"23","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72940","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=72940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72942,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72940\/revisions\/72942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}