UK authorities seized $4.3M in Bitcoin from fugitive crime boss Alexander Surin after he failed to prove the funds were unconnected to illegal drug trafficking.
A British criminal lord known as “Don Car-Leone” has had $4.3 million in Bitcoin (BTC) seized by a UK judge. The decision was made after the fugitive could not demonstrate that the cryptocurrency holdings had nothing to do with illegal activity.
According to the Fugitive Crime Boss, Bitcoin Fortune is legal.
Judge Timothy Mould of the UK High Court recently gave the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) permission to confiscate £3.5 million worth of Bitcoin, or around $4.3 million, from Alexander Surin, also known as “Don Car-Leone,” a convicted criminal.
The Telegraph claims that after Surin was found guilty of cocaine trafficking in France in 2015, he escaped to Dubai. Following his conviction, the National Crime Agency (NCO) seized his money, several London homes, and a fleet of luxury cars.
He and his spouse acknowledged at the time that the £4.5 million in confiscated assets, valued at approximately $5.6 million, had been obtained illegally. In addition, Surin, who reportedly got the moniker from his collection of expensive cars, has millions of Bitcoin in an account with Coinbase Kenya.
He asserts, however, that he legitimately gained his Bitcoin holdings from trading gold bullion in Dubai. The fugitive said that two transactions involving a merchant working out of “small rooms in shops or buildings” at Dubai’s gold souk produced the Bitcoin.
Surin said the trader allegedly operates his business “based on trust and reputation” and lacks a website or bookkeeping record to support the sales.
A judge orders Bitcoin Holdings to be seized.
Martin Evans KC, a CPS official, informed the High Court that there was “compelling evidence” that the funds were obtained illegally. Evans mentioned that Christian Hargreaves, who was found guilty and given a 17-year term for “conspiracy to supply class A drugs,” had made two sizable transfers into Surin’s Coinbase Kenya account.
The report claims that the CPS informed the court that Surin failed to produce any documentation that would have explained how he got so rich after having his prior assets seized, except for two fictitious invoices.
Evans further contended that because Surin and Hargreaves were British, they established the “sufficient connection to England and Wales” necessary to initiate proceeds of crime action to confiscate the Bitcoin that was in the Coinbase Kenya address.
There was “no evidence to show my involvement in any criminality to suggest that the bitcoin were the proceeds of crime,” according to Surin’s email response to the CPS’s allegations.
The CPS was given the authority to confiscate the cryptocurrency assets when Mr. Justice Mould rejected his arguments and determined that Surin’s Bitcoin holdings were money laundered from illicit drug trafficking:
The evidence advanced by the (CPS), that in each case those transactions were made by Hargreaves with the knowledge of the defendant with a view to laundering money derived from illegal drug trafficking, is compelling. (Surin’s) alternative explanation, that each was a legitimate gold bullion sale to Panache Jewels LLC, lacks any credibility in the face of the (CPS’s) evidence.
