The president, along with a board member of the now-closed Geek Group has been issued an indictment for a money laundering case involving illegal trading of Bitcoin. The indictment document was signed on Feb. 24 in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. 28 criminal counts were listed against Chris Boden, founder, and president of The Geek Group; Leesa Vogt, a board member, and company consultant Daniel DeJager. Geek Group Leaders Illegally Traded Bitcoin Worth Over $700,000 The Geek Group, also known as the National Science Institute, was a registered non-profit organization and was previously raided by the IRS and Homeland Security Investigations in December 2018. The reason for the raid still remains unknown. Just less than two weeks after the raid, the Geek Group announced closure following the sealed search warrant. The prosecutors alleged that Boden sold Bitcoin to various customers in exchange for the U.S. dollar, worth more than $700,000 from March 2017 and December 2018. According to the Federal authorities, the defendants were not licensed with the U.S. Department of Treasury as a money services business or money transmitter. To put it simply, they were not legally registered for trading cryptocurrencies. Defendants Also Charged for Money Laundering The prosecutors further alleged that some of the customers’ money came from selling controlled substances. Hence, moving the money by an illegal activity from an unlicensed trader to the drug sales came under money laundering. The defendants had set up a Chase Bank account way back in 2017 to store the proceeds from Bitcoin sales and also to buy more of the cryptocurrency. Apparently, the defendants knowingly moved the money in and out of accounts in small amounts. This way, banks won’t have to file certain federal reports, therefore authorities won’t look into where the money came from. Founded in 1994, The Geek Group provided workspace for people and acted as an incubator for local innovation. It periodically handed out used computers at little or no cost to help children of struggling families for educational purposes.
The post Geek Group Leaders Indicted for Illegal Bitcoin Trade appeared first on Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform.
from Live Crypto News – Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform
