The Manhattan District Attorney indicted a group of individuals who sold drugs on the darknet and laundered millions of dollars through BTC.

According to a press release, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., US Intelligence Service, US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and US National Security Service (HSI) indicted Chester Anderson and his associates Jarrette Codd and Ronald Maccarty. The defendants allegedly ran the darknet stores, which sold and sent “hundreds of thousands” of tablets of counterfeit drugs.

Authorities seized between 420,000 to 620,000 alprazolam tablets, 500 units of heroin with fentanyl supplements and an unnamed amount of methamphetamine, ketamine and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, among other things. This is the largest seizure of such goods in the history of the state of New Jersey.

According to a press release, the alleged criminals were able to sell drugs to customers in 43 states and launder $2.3 million in Bitcoins using prepaid debit cards and cash withdrawals at ATMs. Reportedly, these individuals have withdrawn more than $1 million. In the Supreme Court of the State of New York, they are charged with fourth and fifth-degree criminal conspiracy, as well as money laundering of the first degree.

In the first half of April, a trader from California was sentenced to two years in prison for non-compliance with AML rules. A year ago, a resident of Arizona, Thomas Costanzo was found guilty of money laundering within cryptocurrency transactions worth $164,000.