Bitzlato Co-Founder Anton Shkurenko Arrested in Russia – Anton Shkurenko, co-founder of the recently failed digital asset exchange Bitzlato, was arrested in Moscow, according to the Russian Telegram channel Baza. According to a Tuesday post, the crypto entrepreneur is wanted by French investigators for extortion, data theft, and money laundering. Bitzlato, who is better known in the Russian-speaking market, was apprehended in January during an international law enforcement operation.
According to reports, the coin trading platform has processed over $700 million in illicit funds obtained from criminal groups such as the darknet market Hydra and the Russian crypto pyramid Finiko. Shkurenko and his colleague Anatoly Legkodymov founded the Hong Kong-registered exchange in 2017, after debuting the previous year as a trading bot called BTC Banker that facilitated peer-to-peer transactions.
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Legkodymov, a Russian national residing in China, was arrested in Miami last month by US police. According to an earlier report by Baza, he handed his share of Bitzlato to his partner around a year ago and stepped down as CEO. Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, apprehended more Bitzlato executives in Spain and Cyprus, including the company’s current CEO, financial director, and marketing director, as well as a system administrator.
The servers and website were taken over by French police enforcement. According to the FBI, criminal proceeds from ransomware attacks, hacks, scams, and extortions were funneled through Bitzlato. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, transferred cryptocurrency worth over $346 million for the platform, according to statistics from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
According to the report, Russian officials have yet to determine whether to extradite Anton Shkurenko to France. The arrest comes after he stated last week in an interview with a cryptocurrency YouTube channel that Bitzlato’s remaining team aims to transfer the business to Russia and relaunch operations, including withdrawals.
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