{"id":51370,"date":"2021-10-18T16:44:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T13:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=51370"},"modified":"2025-09-02T23:21:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T20:21:48","slug":"australian-police-arrest-alleged-organisers-of-62-million-cryptocurrency-money-laundering-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/australian-police-arrest-alleged-organisers-of-62-million-cryptocurrency-money-laundering-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian police arrest alleged organisers of $62 million cryptocurrency money-laundering scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Victoria Police has uncovered one of the country\u2019s largest criminal syndicates, suspected of moving tens of millions of dollars to offshore entities. <a href=\"https:\/\/amp.theage.com.au\/national\/victoria\/student-money-mules-police-smash-australia-s-biggest-money-laundering-ring-20211015-p5907i.html\">\u0441\u043e\u043e\u0431\u0449\u0430\u0435\u0442<\/a> The Age.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation began in October 2020. Prosecutors allege that over the past 12 months the group laundered no less than $62 million in cash, using dormant bank accounts of 250 Chinese students who had long since left Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities believe that some of the students&#8217; accounts and identities were obtained by the perpetrators through the dark web.<\/p>\n<p>The money mules then withdrew cash through ATMs located in Melbourne and exchanged it for cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n<p>Police noted that suspicious activity on the accounts of international students became more noticeable amid COVID-19 restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>Five alleged members of the syndicate were arrested last Thursday, 14 October, during police raids.<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement searched nine properties, from which they seized more than $2 million in cash, illegal tobacco, jewelry, designer clothing and four cars \u2013 BMW X5, Toyota Landcruiser, Mercedes C200 Coupe and Porsche.<\/p>\n<p>Three of those arrested have already appeared in court. They were charged with money laundering, structuring transactions and receiving criminal proceeds.<\/p>\n<p>Two more detainees were released on bail and are awaiting a court hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in August, Victoria Police, as part of an investigation into darknet drug trafficking, confiscated <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/australian-police-seize-countrys-largest-ever-cryptocurrency-haul\">a record sum in cryptocurrency<\/a> \u2013 about $6 million.<\/p>\n<p>Read ForkLog&#8217;s Bitcoin news on our <a href=\"https:\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Telegram<\/a> \u2014 news on cryptocurrencies, rates and analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victoria Police uncovered one of the country\u2019s largest criminal syndicates, suspected of moving tens of millions of dollars offshore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[108,1162,1154,477],"class_list":["post-51370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-australia","tag-court-cases","tag-crimes","tag-darknet"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"14","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51372,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51370\/revisions\/51372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}