Russian-related cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato has begun processing withdrawals of digital assets belonging to customers. The trading platform was shut down in an operation conducted by U.S. and European law enforcement agencies alleging that it was being used to launder dirty money.
Bitzlato allowed withdrawals that had remained offline for several weeks
Users who deposited funds with Bitzlato can now begin withdrawing their coins, the recently seized crypto exchange said in a Telegram message. The announcement came after a period of more than a month in which the trading platform was unavailable.
The Hong Kong-registered exchange, well known to Russian-speaking traders, was shut down in January in a coordinated law enforcement effort after French authorities took control of its website and American colleagues arrested co-founder Anatoly Legkodymov.
The U.S. Department of Justice believes Bitzlato processed more than $700 million in funds from criminal organizations such as the darknet marketplace Hydra and the Russian crypto pyramid scheme Finiko; Europol says it has exchanged more than $1 billion in illicit funds.
“We have been gone for 42 long days, but we are back. A lot of work has been done to ensure that your data is safe and your coins are in your wallet.” Bitzlato stated in his post. He also claimed that they were “used as bargaining chips in an underhanded game.”
In late January, four more members, including three executives, were arrested in European countries. Another Bitzlato co-founder, Anton Shkurenko, was briefly detained and interrogated by Russian police in February before being released.
Prior to that, Shkurenko announced in a Youtube interview that Bitzlato intended to relocate to Russia and recover operations and withdrawals from there. He also stated that French investigators had seized more than a third of Bitzlato’s hot wallet assets and that withdrawals would initially be partial.
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