US prosecutors accused a 25 year old man for running a crypt exchange that converted some 25 million USD from fiat to crypto currencies and vice versa.
According to the prosecutors Kunal Kalra known as “Kumar,” facilitated money laundering of funds obtained by illegal activities, including from trade of illegal drugs on the dark net.
Kalra was charged with four counts of criminal information, including for running a unlicensed money transmitting business.
According to the court files Kalra operated a virtual currency exchange in the US without obtaining any permission from the authorities in the period between May 2015 to October 2017, accepting only big orders, where clients payed fees of at least 5000 USD.
US Department of Justice also accuses Kalra of collaborating with dark net drug dealers, for whom he delivered a special money laundering service.
To conduct his clandestine operations Kalra opened various bank accounts, some of which in the names of fake businesses. The defendant also admitted of running a Bitcoin ATM to offer crypto to fiat exchange service.
During the arrest the police seized nearly 900 000 USD in cash along with nearly 55 Bitcoins worth over 500 000 USD.
