Man Gets Six Years for Laundering $1M into Bitcoin for Scammers and Drug Dealers

A man who converted cash into Bitcoin for scammers and a drug dealer has been sentenced to six years behind bars.

Trung Nguyen of Danvers, Massachusetts ran an unlicensed, “no questions asked” money transmitting business called National Vending, according to a statement released by the U.S. Justice Department.

More than $1 million was converted into crypto over a three-year period, with Nguyen receiving a fee in exchange.

The 48-year-old was convicted of accepting $250,000 in cash from a man who identified himself as a meth dealer—and $445,000 from romance scam victims who had been duped into sending BTC to con artists overseas.

Ngyuen also took steps to cover his tracks, telling banks and crypto exchanges that his company was actually a vending machine business.

Encrypted messaging apps were used to communicate with customers, while BTC transactions were obfuscated, making it harder to track the flow of funds.

When making larger cash deposits of more than $10,000, the funds would be broken down into smaller chunks over several days, or split between banks.

He even enrolled in a course so he could learn how to conceal his business, in which he was told to “develop a cover story,” generate a fictitious list of suppliers, and never say the word “Bitcoin.”

Judge Richard G. Sterns ordered Nguyen to forfeit $1.5 million, and ordered him to serve three years of supervised release following his jail term.

When Nguyen was convicted following a five-day trial last November, Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy had a message for money launderers: Bitcoin won’t allow you to clean dirty funds anonymously.

“This defendant’s ‘no questions asked’ money laundering operation allowed a known drug dealer to turn their dirty cash into more deadly meth to pump onto our streets and it allowed scammers to swindle vulnerable victims out of their hard-earned savings,” Levy said.

National Vending was in operation between September 2017 and October 2020, but it lacked anti-money laundering checks and wasn’t registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.