Responsible For Illegal Exchange Of Bitcoin coin.mx Is Sentenced To Prison

Anthony Murgio, 33, of Tampa, Fla., Was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for administering a Bitcoin exchange linked to hackers. The exchange was used to clean up more than $ 10 million of funds, officials said. Both Murgio and Yuri Lebedev, 39, of St. John's, Fla., Operated Coin.mx through a fraudulent company called the "Collectables Club" in Portuguese.

According to the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Bitcoin's illegal exchange used the front company to open financial accounts at banks pretending to be "an exclusive association of individuals who have discussed, bought and sold collectible items and Memorable ".

Murgio operated the Bitcoin exchange between October 2013 and July 2015 for Gery Shalon, 33, an Israeli citizen responsible for hacking at least nine companies, including JPMorgan Chase, E-Trade Financial Corporation and Dow Jones. Coin.mx sold bitcoins that came from illegal online transactions, such as victim payments to ransomware invaders who sought to "flush" the crypto-coins.

US officials described its operation as a "diversified criminal conglomerate" responsible for the largest stealing of valuable information from a US bank. The compromised data included the names of the customers, along with email addresses and phone numbers. Authorities have obtained evidence indicating that Murgio has exchanged money for the bitcoins of the Shalon criminal gang. Israeli police arrested Shalon and Orenstein in July 2015 and were extradited to the United States in June 2016. Both face serious charges including aggravated identity theft, electronic fraud and money laundering.

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