A Brand New You are able to man is facing twenty five years imprisonment, after being charged with a federal jury in Brooklyn of cash washing and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
The unlicensed business the person was charged with operating was a part of a plan to launder money earned in bitcoin (BTC) from illegal drug trafficking, a press release in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for that Eastern District of recent You are able to stated.
The charged man was recognized as 50-year-old Mustafa Goklu, also referred to as “Mustangy.”
The decision adopted a four-day trial in New You are able to, and Goklu now faces a prison sentence of twenty five years.
Based on Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for that Eastern District of recent You are able to, Goklu’s business offered customers the opportunity to launder arises from various criminal activities, yet still time remaining anonymous and “conceal where their Bitcoin was originating from […].”
“With today’s verdict, Goklu’s illicit business of converting money in one form to a different with no needed license continues to be shut lower and also the defendant continues to be charged for his crimes,” Peace stated. He continued by way of thanking the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s New You are able to Division for “outstanding investigative focus on the situation.”
Goklu’s arrest came after undercover police force agents first observed an advert published around the peer-to-peer bitcoin buying and selling platform LocalBitcoins.com in which a user named “Mustangy” provided to purchase as much as $99,999 price of BTC. The undercover agents then began to make contact with “Mustangy,” whose real name was Mustafa Goklu, and then met with him personally to market bitcoin for money.
Per the pr release, the undercover agents apparently indicated “on multiple occasions” the supply of the bitcoin these were selling was drug trafficking, but Goklu still completed the trade as agreed.
As a whole, Goklu and also the undercover agents met on seven occasions more than a nine-month period, which ended with Goklu’s arrest in April 2019.
