The European Union’s police agency (Europol) said it had arrested five senior officials at the licensed Bitzlato exchange.
the EU agency said January 23rd Those arrested include Spain’s CEO, financial director and marketing director.
The arrests were made after eight raids in Spain, Cyprus, Portugal and the United States.
During the raid, Europol seized approximately €18 million ($19.5 million) worth of cryptocurrency and froze over 100 cryptocurrency accounts holding approximately €50 million ($54.3 million) worth of assets. said.
Europol added that Bitzlato facilitated the laundering of various crypto assets, including 119 bitcoins worth €2.1 billion.
Further analysis by Europol revealed that around 46% of the assets exchanged through Bitzlato, worth around €1 billion ($1.08 billion), were linked to criminal activity.
On January 18, Bitzlato founder Anatoly Legkodymov was arrested by US authorities for conducting a money transfer business. Additionally, major cryptocurrency exchange Binance was named among the top three beneficiaries of Bitzrat’s illicit funds.
