A Bulgarian man already serving time for one of the larger crypto laundering cases prosecuted in the U.S. has been charged with pulling off another scheme from inside federal prison, allegedly moving $290,000 in cryptocurrency that a court had ordered him to forfeit.
Defendants who "flout lawfully entered orders" from earlier cases will be charged for that obstruction, said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. The U.S. Secret Service, which investigated both cases, called the alleged transfers a “direct challenge” to the courts and to his victims.
The RG Coins caseTrial evidence showed he laundered nearly $5 million in cryptocurrency in under three years. He was ordered to pay more than $2.6 million in restitution and to forfeit the crypto now at the center of the new case, and was serving a 111-month term when the alleged transfers took place.
If convicted on the new charges, Iossifov faces up to 25 years in prison on top of his current sentence. The Justice Department's computer crime section, which handled the prosecution, says it has secured convictions of more than 180 cyber and intellectual-property criminals since 2020 and court orders returning over $350 million to victims.
