A Danvers man, Trung Nguyen, 48, has been sentenced to six years in jail for running an illegal cash-to-Bitcoin exchange.
The report showed that he laundered over $1 million from 2017 to 2020, helping scammers and drug dealers hide dirty money. Nguyen’s “no questions asked” service, disguised as National Vending, LLC, charged fees to convert cash to Bitcoin.
Six-Year Jail Term
Nguyen’s operation began in September 2017, accepting cash from clients, including a meth dealer who paid $250,000 in 2018. Between 2019 and 2020, he took $445,000 from romance scam victims in Missouri, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Prosecutors said he used encrypted apps and split cash deposits to avoid bank scrutiny.
His course taught him to mask his business as a vending machine company, fooling banks and authorities. The feds caught on, leading to his conviction in Boston’s federal court last week.
He took a course to avoid detection, using fake supplier lists and not mentioning “Bitcoin.” Federal prosecutors in Boston charged him with operating without a license, revealing his shady dealings.
Crypto-Focused Crimes Increase
Massachusetts is not the only location that has recorded cases of crypto crimes recently; other states and countries have also had a fair share of the menace.
For example, Eric Council Jr., a 25-year-old from Athens, Alabama, was sentenced last week to 14 months in jail for hacking the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) X account, which distorted the price of Bitcoin.
In another development, a South Korean woman in her 40s, known only as “A,” was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing nearly $500,000 in cryptocurrency from her boyfriend while he slept. The Jeju District Court convicted her of fraud after she transferred 488,000 million won from his crypto wallet to hers on January 5.
As digital currencies grow, will authorities keep up with clever criminals? Only time will tell if these convictions deter others or if crypto scams will evolve further.
