Not all of them, but we are certain about two unlucky men, who tried to transfer large amounts of money through the Bitcoin environment.
First supposed criminal is Michell Abner Espinoza, the resident of Miami Beach. He was “fished” by an undercover agent, who engaged Michell, also known under the nickname MichaelHack on the mentioned platform, to spend 30 thousand dollars on Bitcoin. Without hesitation MichaelHack agreed to meet with agent and, well paid for it. Michell is charged with money laundering and frequent unlicensed money transmission-type transactions.
If former charge is somewhat comprehensible, the latter might need an additional explanation. The person is forbidden from making frequent transactions of $300 to $20000 that have not been licensed or monitored during the one-year period.
The fact of exchanging a hundred thousand dollars counts as first-degree felony.
Returning to Michell, it is claimed that this man has moved around an amount of BTC that exceeds 150 mark in the last half a year. Considering the price of the Bitcoin for the last two month, even though it was a rough ride for BTC, the man is definitely in trouble.
Pascal Reid was the second man punished by justice, when an agent used a similar “fishing” technique, selling $30000 for BTC. The details on this one are unclear, but investigators claim that Reid had 403 BTC on his smartphone wallet, which would cost more than 300 thousand dollars according to the price of the coin on the moment of writing.
A computer science researcher at University of California, Berkley, Nicholas Weaver believes that this story is rather important for the cryptocommunity of America, as the localbitcoins.com is one of the last places, where U.S. residents could buy or sell Bitcoin anonymously.
Weaver has further thoughts on the subject. In his opinion Florida is just the start as other states will join it in the witch hunt.
At earlier times, Bitcoin was considered untraceable, but everything changes. Surely, it’s much harder to trace a person by his Bitcoin transactions than using the classical bank transactions, but with enough tenacity and knowledge no measure grants you true anonymity. The analysis of the criminal protocol made it possible to point at the agent’s wallet. Therefore, if one would use the traceability of Bitcoin, then he or she should remember that this is a double-edged sword.
After everything said I highly advise you to check your State laws before moving around big amounts of money, or you might find yourself doing something illegal without even knowing it.