Key Points
On March 12, Russian-Swedish national Roman Sterlingov was found guilty of money laundering conspiracy and other violations by a federal jury in Washington, DC, for having operated Bitcoin Fog, a service criminals used to launder what authorities claim was hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains...
The conviction was heralded by the US Department of Justice as a victory over crypto-enabled criminality, but Sterlingovs lawyers maintain the case against him was flawed and plan to appeal..
In a statement, Lisa Monaco, deputy attorney general for the US, described the DOJ as painstakingly tracing bitcoin through the blockchain to identify Sterlingov as the pseudonymous administrator behind Bitcoin Fog...
Before Sterlingovs trial, his attorneys asked the presiding judge to determine the admissibility of evidence from blockchain forensics experts that had used software from a firm called Chainalysis, which expedites the otherwise tedious process of sifting through the blockchain..
Bitcoin Fog was among the first mixers to emerge, in 2011, making it the longest-running bitcoin money laundering service on the darknet, the DOJ says.. In the past few years, the US government has cracked down on crypto mixers, which it considers a threat to national security..
