Man Gets Six Years for Laundering $1M into Bitcoin for Scammers and Drug Dealers
Trung Nguyen, a 48-year-old from Danvers, Massachusetts, has been sentenced to six years in prison for running an unlicensed money transmitting business called National Vending. Over three years, he converted more than $1 million into Bitcoin for scammers and a drug dealer, charging fees for his services. Nguyen accepted $250,000 from a meth dealer and $445,000 from victims of romance scams. He employed tactics to obscure his operations, including misrepresenting his business to banks and crypto exchanges, using encrypted messaging for communications, and breaking down large cash deposits into smaller amounts. Nguyen was also instructed on how to conceal his activities, including creating a cover story. He was ordered to forfeit $1.5 million and will serve three years of supervised release after his prison term. National Vending operated from September 2017 to October 2020 without proper anti-money laundering measures or registration with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
