A Washington state resident has been charged with cash laundering after promoting Bitcoin for $140,000 in money to undercover brokers.Bothell’s Ke
A Washington state resident has been charged with cash laundering after promoting Bitcoin for $140,000 in money to undercover brokers.
Bothell’s Kenneth Warren Rhule, 26, met with brokers from Homeland Safety Investigations on quite a few events between April to December 2018, usually in Seattle-area Starbucks cafes.
In keeping with the unsealed complaint Rhule — who traded on localbitcoins.com below the identify Gimacut9 — allegedly closed at the very least seven offers with brokers “posing as criminals” who wished to purchase untraceable Bitcoin with the proceeds of their operations. They advised Rhule they had been bringing Ukranian ladies to the U.S. for the needs of prostitution.
Particular Agent Victor Morales from the Drug Enforcement Company stated within the criticism:
“Rhule performed these transactions even after the spy defined that at the very least a portion of the money concerned represented proceeds of human trafficking.”
Rhule made an look earlier than the US District Court docket of Seattle on Tuesday. He was charged with conducting an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise and 5 counts of laundering financial devices. The criticism famous that he did not conduct any Know Your Buyer ID verification checks.
The cash laundering costs are punishable by as much as 20 years in jail, whereas the marijuana costs are punishable with a minimal of 5 years in jail, and a most of 40 years.
Rhule allegedly boasts of drug operations
On one event whereas ready for confirmations the Bitcoin had been efficiently deposited, Rhule allegedly boasted about doing “5,10 or 20,000 kilo” CBD (Cannabidiol) orders. The investigation discovered he was operating an unlicensed marijuana merchandise enterprise manufacturing objects together with hash oil. He documented his refined rising operations with pictures uploaded to his Google, iCloud and Instagram accounts — together with photos of Rhule posing with crops of marijuana.
He was additionally charged with conspiracy to fabricate and distribute marijuana.
Bitcoin seller extols the virtues of Monero
Rhule additionally suggested the undercover brokers that Bitcoin was solely pseudo-anonymous and extolled the virtues of Monero which he stated was a “100% nameless cryptocurrency”:
“Rhule defined to UCA-1 that Monero operated below the identical idea as any cryptocurrency and was verifiable on the blockchain with one essential caveat: pockets addresses couldn’t be tracked.”
The ‘Gimacut9’ LocalBitcoins account final made a deal on July 1 2019 and was banned from November 2019 onwards. LocalBitcoins not provides a money for crypto buying and selling choice.