Bitcoin Forum

Two Australian Bitcoin exchanges shut down following arrest of key executive (good thing they arrested the guy before he could scam anyone)

https://micky.com.au/two-australian-bitcoin-exchanges-shut-down-following-arrest-of-key-executive/

"Micky can reveal two Australian cryptocurrency exchanges have been suspended by AUSTRAC after a ‘key member’ involved in the businesses was arrested during Australian Federal Police raids across Melbourne yesterday.
...
He’s been charged with importing, trafficking and possessing a total of approximately 30 kilograms of drugs, including MDMA, cocaine, methamphetamine and ketamine.

Police will allege the 27-year-old played a key role in directing the operations of a criminal syndicate, which used various dark net sites, Bitcoin accounts and legitimate business for the sourcing, payment and distribution of illicit drugs.

Following the arrest, financial regulator AUSTRAC suspended the registrations of two digital currency exchange businesses the 27-year-old is associated with."

Another reason to have more decentralized exchanges and to use them.

It's not only about scamming the users of the exchange but Its also about giving a bad image about bitcoin and crypto in general. We've seen a similar thing with Paxful, BTC-e and other exchanges in the past.

Wow, so the 'CEO' is an experienced criminal. No wonder he can get caught and the exchange stopped quickly.

I do agree this shows how centralized exchange posses high danger of exit scamming or fraudulent but tbh if you have problems with CEX you can report tit to government at least, while I don't really know what's the results of such thing. CEX is not that bad as long as government is involved (which is ironic).

this is a major problem facing the world for years, drug trafficking is destroying the lives of many people around the world. But they can not blame bitcoin, I agree that being the owner of the exchange makes sense they close the exchanges. But what if other people want to open exchange? they will be allowed or with this case the government intends to generalize the problem blaming bitcoin?

It's not surprising that there are some crooks that run bitcoin exchanges. There are plenty more that haven't been shut down or even discovered yet, the users of these two are just lucky that they didn't get defrauded at the end of the day because the arrests were made on time.

The thing that I'm surprised about though is the fact that this guy is associated with two exchanges at the same time, and at a high level. Makes you wonder how many "sockpuppet" exchanges are out there owned by the same person/organisation.

Also, this guy got arrested for something that's completely unrelated to scamming. Just imagine how many cases goes unreported and unheard, where people actually get scammed, because there is not enough evidence or leads to establish a case.

Exactly my thoughts, specially about the BTC-e thingy years ago.

Looks like criminals are evolving and using crypto to hide most of their illegal acts. I don't know if the man involved in the CEO or that exchange, it only says 'key member'. Anyhow, I'm sure they know what they're doing when they put up this exchange. Unfortunately, they can't still hide from the authorities but I'm sure if will have a impact to the account holders.

They did evolved already even in the past few years.

The question is why did the Australian government let that exchange operate without proper inspection or review of that company or even know that the CEO or any executives have a background of being a criminal.

The whole ecosystem is working towards that direction as we speak.

The more of these exchanges go down, the more people will be motivated to look into dex'es and actually use them. We still have a long way to go in terms of catching up to the speed and volumes centralized exchanges offer, but the first step is set, and that's what matters.

Interoperability between different chains is what the ultimate goal is. It's a pretty neat feature if clients have it built in and people can exchange one coin for the other without any intermediaries.

What is the name of these two exchange? I can't find this info, although I think it is very important to know it

In his young age he sounds a mafia, lol! So this 27 year old man had already engage to various crime. But why the report didn't named these alleged criminals and the two exchange sites associated. I did some googling but don't see other news about this.

Many appear to be using these platforms as tools to obtain legitimate money to buy and trade drugs.
As mentioned above, such news encourages the connection between cryptocurrencies and illegal businesses, surprised by the greed of investors to buy more promises-based shitcoins and platforms offering much less collateral than banks.

Outside the text: 30 kg of drugs is a very large amount, in my country, may be punished in prison for too too too tooooo long time.

Just good that they do able to bust out this fella rather than letting this man do all the criminal or illegal things because when time comes out
that he doesn't have enough money to spend or use on buying those drugs and other transactions then his possible option would be taking
all and scam the money into that exchange.So, it was just right or the right time.

Just one "key member" got arrested and the whole exchange got a serious issue, and based from the article, not even totally crypto-related;
if it is an exchange from my country, chances that one or two members have a questionable background is high.
Guess it's time to move some of my coins out of the local exchange where it is sitting...

Hey OP, are those suspended exchanges "famous" in their local population?
Because I haven't heard of any suspended exchange (international-media/news), guess, it's just another scammy exchange that you can find right here in this board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=223.0).

This is what I got about this :
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/wealth/sam-karagiozis-arrested-following-afp-organised-crime-investigation/news-story/564e24fca9ca0bb6d5e37c2fe152196f

The guy's name is Sam Karagiozis.

And apparently one of the exchanges is named Auscoin :
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/auscoin-creator-sam-karagiozis-charged-101035988.html

Not sure there really is a second exchange, this is all I could find.

I guess the Australian government didn't know in the first place who are this people operating from behind. I try to look at the person pointed out by @kenzawak and it seems the website is already down. (https://samkaragiozis.com/). I also try to check AUSTRAC, (http://www.austrac.gov.au/about-us/austrac) which is Australian main agency, having the full responsibility for anti-money laundering and perhaps they did a good job nailing those crypto exchanges being used as front for illegal activities.