Great Britain's first criminal punishment for illegal crypto money machines – TradingView News

An illegal crypto -atm operator was convicted to serve four years in prison to do it -at the first criminal conviction of the United Kingdom because of unregistered crypto activities.

Olumide Osunkoya illegally operated a network of crypto money machines that he did without the required supervisory authorization, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced in a statement from February 28th.

“This is the first criminal conviction in Great Britain for non -registered crypto activities and sends a clear message: Those who make our rules try to discover the discovery and participate in criminal activities will have serious consequences,” said Therese Chambers, joint executive director of the enforcement and market supervision at the FCA.

The FCA calculated Osunkoya on September 10 for the management of crypto payment machines without registration at 28 locations via his company Gidiplus LTD from December 2021 to March 2022, which processed £ 2.6 million ($ 3.14 million).

He later transferred the ATMs from his company, Gidiplus, and personally operated up to 12 machines under a fake name and company to discover the detection. He was also unable to make sure that they were not used to washing money, the watchdog said.

Osunkoya was also the first person in Great Britain to operate a network of illegal crypto money machines, and later confessed five charges this month on September 30th.

Osunkoya was also convicted of falsification because he had created four bank statements to pass a source of financial check on a crypto exchange. A fake identity was used to have a company under an alias and criminal property – £ 19,540 (£ 24,567) received in cash in cash that manage the illegal ATMS.

“Your decision to continue to operate illegally was a law on deliberate and calculated despite the supervisory authority,” said judge Gregory Perrins when convicting the 46-year-old Osunkoya at the Southwark Crown Court in London.

“Her actions were intentionally and carefully planned,” added Perrins judge. “It cannot be said that it is a mere regulatory injury.”

Osunkoya's judgment falls after an FCA flash of 2023 with local police authorities across the country to suspend illegal crypto money machines.

The FCA said that it visited 38 locations and dropped 30 machines, and the number of Krypto money machines advertised on the Münz -atm -Radar website this year from 80 in 2022 to zero.

“The FCA continues to warn people that they should be ready to lose all of their money when buying crypto,” said the regulatory authority in their explanation. “Crypto remains largely unregulated in Great Britain and is a high risk.”