Bitcoin ATM Operator Accused in New York of Running Illegal Business


A New York City resident named Robert
Taylor has been accused of purportedly running a network of illicit bitcoin
ATMs in laundromats focused on clients associated with crimes looking to
launder cash secretly.
On April 13, Manhattan District Attorney
Alvin Bragg Jr. reported that “Robert Taylor allegedly went to great lengths to
keep his bitcoin kiosk business as secret as possible to attract a clientele
that would pay top dollar for anonymity.”
The 35 years old man, purportedly finished $5.6 million in exchanges in a single year, energizing clients' expenses of to 25% to change their money over to bitcoin the Manhattan District Attorney's office said.
Taylor ran bitcoin kiosks in somewhere
around 46 places in New York City, generally in laundromats, as well as areas
in New Jersey and Miami.
He defended the high expenses to clients by
focusing that his activity posed no inquiries and ensured obscurity, examiners
said.
Taylor is charged with numerous counts of
working an unlicensed cash transmission business, criminal tax fraud in a third
degree, and offering a misleading instrument for filing in the primary degree.
Bragg elaborates: "As the use of
cryptocurrencies like bitcoin proliferates, they continue to attract a wide
range of bad actors who are hoping to evade law enforcement."
Agents seized cash of $250,000 from Taylor's Manhattan penthouse and $44,000 from 20 of the bitcoin ATMs. They likewise said they observed a sketch in his apartment of two men installing a bitcoin kiosk at a laundromat.
Scientific investigation showed that more
than $5.6 million in real money was kept in Taylor's bitcoin ATMs between
September 2017 and November 2018. More than $590,000 in charges were gathered
and roughly $160,000 were credited into Taylor's financial balances in the bank.
Taylor's business was not authorized by the
New York State Department of Financial Services or the U.S. Depository
Department of the Treasury, prosecutors said. It likewise didn't expect clients
to show ID or answer any of the "know your customer" questions that
banks are expected to ask under regulation.
According to prosecutors, one client was
allegedly told, “We never ask for ID or have a camera that takes a pic of your
face.”
The only identifying information on
Taylor’s kiosks was a Snapchat icon, which linked to an anonymous Snapchat
account that was connected only to a pre-paid burner phone and an encrypted
Proton email account, prosecutors said. The Snapchat channel told customers not
to tell anyone about the location of the ATMs. “We need to stay hidden,” the
company said.

Joyashree Dey
CBW - External Analyst
INDIA