A Chinese intelligence officer has been charged with money laundering for using bitcoin as part of an effort with another officer to bribe a United States government employee.
Guochun He and Zheng Wang are charged with attempting to obstruct a criminal prosecution of an unnamed Chinese global telecommunications company, while He is also charged with two counts of money laundering for using bitcoin to pay bribes, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Monday (Oct. 24) in a press release.
Attempting to obtain non-public information related to an investigation and prosecution of a company based in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), two intelligence officers paid $61,000 in bitcoin to a double agent controlled by the FBI, the release stated.
“As alleged, the case involves an effort by PRC intelligence officers to obstruct an ongoing criminal prosecution by making bribes to obtain files from this office and sharing them with a global telecommunications company that is a charged defendant in an ongoing prosecution,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said in the release.
The defendants are at large. If convicted, He faces up to 60 years in prison and Wang faces up to 20 years of imprisonment, according to the release.
As PYMNTS reported in February, cryptocurrencies’ use as a tool for money laundering has been under attack, with prosecutors and politicians using criminal charges to fight the flow of dirty money through blockchains — as well as any unregulated and unidentified use of crypto.
Read more: From the US and EU to Russia, Crypto Money Laundering Is Under Attack
For example, in October 2021, the DOJ announced two guilty pleas in a groundbreaking prosecution of the leaders of the BitMEX cryptocurrency derivatives exchange for ignoring anti-money-laundering (AML) regulations.
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