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Zoobia Shahnaz, a New York resident, admitted Monday that she was found guilty of money laundering and terrorist financing. One of the ways used by Shahnaz to commit these crimes was bitcoin and other encrypted currencies.
According to a press release issued by the US Department of Justice, Shahnaz provided a total of $ 150,000 to the Islamic State (terrorist group also known as ISIS) through representatives in Pakistan, China and Turkey. An amount of $ 22,500 was obtained through fraudulent bank loans from American Express, Chase, Discover and TD Bank.
Subsequently, Shahnaz used a dozen credit cards to purchase USD 62,000 in bitcoins and other cryptographic currencies to launder money and transfer it, as well as other USD 65,500 (originally is not specified), on the bank accounts of ISIS-related companies in the countries mentioned.
Shahnaz's actions took place between March and July 2017. In December of last year, Criptonoticias recounted how the criminal had been arrested while she was trying to flee to Syria. At that time, the defendant was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Now this potential sentence has been reduced to 20 years and fined in addition to compensation for damages.
The investigation against Shahnaz was conducted by the FBI. The authorities discovered that the defendant had access to Islamic State propaganda on several websites, as well as to social forums and networks related to the group's collaborators, where allegedly violent messages had been broadcast. .
FBI Deputy Director William F. Sweeney said that Shahnaz's speedy arrest would help deter future criminals from committing similar crimes. However, a study carried out last June by the European Parliament showed that crypto-currencies are little used to finance terrorism.
In the accusation made by the ministry in December 2017, no explicit mention of cryptocurrencies was made, probably because of the legal turmoil that prevailed around cryptoactives at the time. On this occasion, the press release details how part of the money obtained by Shahnaz has been converted into cryptocurrencies.
The state of New York was the first place in the United States to regulate trading houses when creating BitLicense in 2015, and since then many cases involve cryptoactives in the US. State.
The selected image of sveta / stock.adobe.com
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