i'm not sure about the veracity of this commentary or the details of the article, but this was apparently published by polish government-owned media, so i won't immediately dismiss it as FUD. but it could be FUD.
the connections to bitfinex are unconfirmed as yet. however, the circumstances (like polish shell companies) and the dollar value of funds seized point to bitfinex more than any other exchange. the article clearly states that the shell companies are associated with a cryptocurrency exchange.
original articlegoogle translatesome discussion/commentaryaccording to NullZeroX:
Crypto sp.zoo is likely bitfinex owned company - because users had to send money to this company (i posted screenshot). The article mentions "C" owned by panama resident, you check owner of this company using public registry.
about crypto sp.zoo:
The "C" company which the article mentions is Crypto sp.z.o.o (limited liability company). Here is article written when bitfinex entered Poland with it's shell company.
The entire story might not be as bad as it sounds. It appears that someone tried to cash out stolen money using btc and bitfinex. The narco thing might be just because of bad connections of the guy setting up shell companies for multiple people (bitfinex too). More info below.
Money flow from article: ministry belgium scammed for money -> sent to X company -> prosecutors find connection (transfer???) to "C" company -> prosecutors seize X and C company money. So possible that someone made a scam attempt and fiat->btc cashout to finex attempt.
If the panama guy is typical mule then yea he could have gotten a lot of bad connections for setting up hundreds of companies abroad. Article says about "narco" connections, but he might had bad luck and setup company for wrong people... that's how it got connected to narcotics.
So in such case, there's a chance that instead of seizing money from scam ONLY (which has been sent to bfx shell company "C" in stolenfiat2btc attempt) - The prosecutors decided to seize all of bitfinex money. This is typical to this governament.
from the article:
Colombian cartels washed hundreds of millions through the companies from Pruszków and the surrounding area
A billion PLN 270 million taken over in March by the CBŚP prosecutor's office is most likely the money belonging to Colombian drug cartels - according to informer tvp.info. It is known that the money was on the accounts of two companies from the vicinity of Pruszków, which were owned by a Canadian-born Panamanian descent and a Colombian with the citizenship of Panama. One of these companies was a shareholder of an online cryptocurrency exchange office. Millions of such operations were to flow through a small cooperative bank in Lodz.
While checking the connections of this company, investigators came across another company - C. At its head stood a man with citizenship of Colombia and Panama. This, in turn, the company was associated with a large online cantor exchange of cryptocurrencies. Both companies had over PLN 270 million deposited on their accounts.
The companies were also used for large scale scams. Criminals have hidden their operations, also exchanging money for cryptocurrencies, obliterating traces - says the TVp.info interlocutor.
Investigators determined that both companies did not actually carry out any economic activity. They were created solely to share your bank accounts with international criminal financial operations.
.......good news for bitcoin?
