TL;DR Breakdown
- Hopkins who operates illegal crypto scheme to get jail time
- Crypto King also nabbed in India
Mark Alexander Hopkins, popularly called Doctor Bitcoin, has been found guilty and sentenced to jail for operating an illegal cash-to-crypto scheme. Doctor Bitcoin confessed that he allowed criminals to exchange fiat to Bitcoin illegally.
Prerak Shah, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said that Doctor Bitcoin admitted that he ran unlicensed money transmitting business. He argued that Hopkins failed to comply with Texas laws and enabled criminals to gain profits from dealing with BTC.
“This defendant ignored federal law and allowed fraudsters to use Bitcoin to operate under the radar of law enforcement. “We are determined to rid the Bitcoin marketplace of anyone who knowingly helps criminal actors stash illegal profits inside crypto wallets,” Shah said.
Hopkins was accused of converting U.S. dollars to digital assets, mainly BTC, for a fee. However, he admitted that he ignored the process of verifying the source of the cash on numerous occasions.
One of the most notorious transactions he performed was in 2019 when an anonymous man with the initials “M.H.” approached Hopkins to exchange dollars to BTC. Despite the money emanating from a lottery scam in Nigeria, Hopkins still allowed the transaction to pass.
He even offered financial advice to the anonymous person telling him to operate with deposits under $9,500. After pleading guilty, he now faces a reduced sentence of up to five years behind bars in federal prison.
Like Doctor Bitcoin, crypto king got nabbed in India
Weeks back, Cryptopolitan reported how Crypto King, a notorious drug criminal, had been arrested in India for paying for hard drugs with Bitcoin both locally and internationally on the Darknet.
Crypto King, whose real name is Makarand Pardeep Adivirkar, was arrested by India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). He notoriously imported hard drugs from Europe and peddled them across states in India.
According to the NCB, crypto king operated on the notorious Darknet, where numerous outlaws trade illegal substances like drugs and weapons.
He also received cash payment for illegal goods and provided Bitcoin on marginal profit using his wallet to purchase these drugs.
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