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Costa Rica dismantles major cryptocurrency laundering network
At least 36 people were arrested in Costa Rica on Tuesday in a major police operation, including judges, lawyers and two Spanish leaders of a gang dedicated to property theft and money laundering via cryptocurrencies, authorities said.
The director of the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ), Randall Zúñiga, said in a press conference that it is “a fairly well-established criminal organization” that was allegedly “dedicated to stealing or robbing properties of people in the country and subsequently legitimizing them to third parties”. parties”.
According to the investigation, which began two and a half years ago, the network laundered capital from stolen assets through the purchase of cryptocurrencies. “In a single transaction on a particular day, they moved $13 million in bitcoin,” Zúñiga commented.
The gang had the services of cryptocurrency experts, and its leaders were two Spanish citizens, aged 41 and 42, without regular immigration status in Costa Rica, he indicated.
During the operation, which involved approximately 500 OIJ agents, 47 raids were carried out across the country. At least 36 people have been arrested and more are expected to be caught soon.
Zúñiga said that all those arrested are accused of the crimes of “registration fraud, ideological falsehood and money laundering”. “Lawyers, notaries, public officials, including five traffic police officers, have been arrested,” he added.
The gang had as a “parallel activity” public transport lines with private buses and used traffic officers to fine competitors and “be able to remove them from circulation”, the official said.
“It’s a criminal group that moved a lot of money,” Zúñiga noted. According to the OIJ, at least a hundred properties were stolen, although one of those arrested speaks of up to 300.