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How the largest bitcoin mixer on the darknet worked and why it was closed.
A US court has sentenced the creator of the largest bitcoin laundering service on the darknet. 36-year-old Roman Sterling, who has Russian and Swedish citizenship, will spend 12 years and six months behind bars.
For ten years, from 2011 to 2021, Sterling operated the Bitcoin Fog platform, the longest-running cryptocurrency "mixer" on the darknet. During its operation, more than 1.2 million bitcoins passed through the service, which at the time of the transactions was estimated at about $400 million.
According to the investigation, the bulk of the funds were sent from darknet trading platforms. The money was linked to drug trafficking, computer crimes, identity theft and child sexual abuse material.
In March 2024, after a month-long trial, a jury found Sterling guilty of several counts at once: conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering itself, as well as operating an unlicensed money transfer business and making money transfers without a license in the District of Columbia.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered the defendant to pay a fine of $395,563,025.39. Cryptocurrencies and monetary assets seized from him with a total value of about $1.76 million are also subject to confiscation.
A Bitcoin Fog wallet containing approximately 1,345 bitcoins was also seized from the criminal. To date, the value of these crypto assets exceeds $103 million.
The head of the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division, Guy Ficco, said that Sterling's attempt to hide his illegal activities under a cloak of anonymity failed thanks to the coordinated work of investigators. Special agents of the US Internal Revenue Service and the FBI participated in the operation. Significant assistance was provided by the Office of International Affairs of the US Department of Justice and the FBI's virtual assets unit.
Additional assistance to the investigation was provided by law enforcement agencies of Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Romania and the United Kingdom, as well as Europol.
Source
A US court has sentenced the creator of the largest bitcoin laundering service on the darknet. 36-year-old Roman Sterling, who has Russian and Swedish citizenship, will spend 12 years and six months behind bars.
For ten years, from 2011 to 2021, Sterling operated the Bitcoin Fog platform, the longest-running cryptocurrency "mixer" on the darknet. During its operation, more than 1.2 million bitcoins passed through the service, which at the time of the transactions was estimated at about $400 million.
According to the investigation, the bulk of the funds were sent from darknet trading platforms. The money was linked to drug trafficking, computer crimes, identity theft and child sexual abuse material.
In March 2024, after a month-long trial, a jury found Sterling guilty of several counts at once: conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering itself, as well as operating an unlicensed money transfer business and making money transfers without a license in the District of Columbia.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered the defendant to pay a fine of $395,563,025.39. Cryptocurrencies and monetary assets seized from him with a total value of about $1.76 million are also subject to confiscation.
A Bitcoin Fog wallet containing approximately 1,345 bitcoins was also seized from the criminal. To date, the value of these crypto assets exceeds $103 million.
The head of the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division, Guy Ficco, said that Sterling's attempt to hide his illegal activities under a cloak of anonymity failed thanks to the coordinated work of investigators. Special agents of the US Internal Revenue Service and the FBI participated in the operation. Significant assistance was provided by the Office of International Affairs of the US Department of Justice and the FBI's virtual assets unit.
Additional assistance to the investigation was provided by law enforcement agencies of Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Romania and the United Kingdom, as well as Europol.
Source
