Dealer Pleads Guilty for Laundering $19 Million in BTC

November 11, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

Former Silk Road drug dealer Hugh Brian Haney pleaded guilty for laundering $19 million in illegally obtained funds through BTC.

New York Southern District Attorneys have announced a plea deal with Hugh Haney, adding another chapter to the story of the infamous shadow site of the Silk Road. Recall that Haney was charged with laundering almost $20 million through Bitcoin in early 2018.

Haney was a “high-ranking member” of the Pharmville narcotics group, which sold drugs through Silk Road. According to prosecutors, in 2012 he received 4,000 BTC from accounts related to the darknet market. New York Southern District Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman noted:

“Hugh Haney used Silk Road as a means to sell drugs to people all over the world. Then he laundered more than $19 million in profits through cryptocurrency.”

The drug dealer was caught after liquidating the remaining $19,147,053 on the BTC exchange in January and February 2018. An unnamed company froze his account and launched an internal investigation, which ultimately led to the issuance of a search warrant.

Haney was arrested in July 2019. At first, he claimed that he had received his Bitcoins through mining, but using “blockchain analysis software”, investigators proved that the funds came from the Silk Road darknet market.

Hugh Haney pleaded guilty to one case of concealing money laundering and one case of participating in a financial transaction with the criminally obtained property. Haney’s verdict will be handed down in February 2020.

Author: Marko Vidrih