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A Santa Monica man charged with utilizing his cryptocurrency money alternate enterprise to launder tens of millions of {dollars} in alleged prison proceeds is predicted to plead responsible Wednesday to a federal cost.
Charles Randol, 33, has agreed to enter his plea to failure to keep up an efficient anti-money laundering program, against the law that carries a jail sentence of as much as 5 years, in line with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace.
From October 2017 to July 2021, Randol owned and operated a virtual-currency cash providers enterprise generally known as Digital Coin Methods LLC. The corporate supplied cryptocurrency money alternate providers for a fee, in line with his plea settlement.
Randol met nameless clients in particular person to finish transactions, controlling and working a community of automated kiosks in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties that transformed money to Bitcoin and vice versa, and carried out Bitcoin-for-cash transactions for unknown individuals who mailed massive quantities of U.S. foreign money to him, together with to publish workplace packing containers that he managed, papers filed in Los Angeles federal courtroom present.
Randol admitted in his plea settlement to repeatedly violating federal legislation and his firm’s personal insurance policies by facilitating suspicious foreign money alternate transactions and taking steps to hide them from legislation enforcement.
For instance, Randol regularly carried out in-person money transactions that exceeded $10,000 with nameless or pseudo-anonymous people, together with folks whom Randol knew solely by such monikers as Puppet Shariff, White Jetta, Yogurt Monster and Hood.
In his plea settlement, Randol admitted to participating in particular transactions from October 2020 to January 2021 by which he exchanged a complete of $273,940 in money for Bitcoin with out requesting a reputation, proof of id, Social Safety quantity or every other details about the customer or the supply of the funds being exchanged — violations of the Financial institution Secrecy Act.
Randol additionally allowed criminals to construction and launder funds by way of his Bitcoin kiosks in malls, gasoline stations and comfort shops in Los Angeles, Glendale, Santa Clarita, Huntington Seaside, Santa Ana and Riverside, prosecutors allege.
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