A Montrealer who made his fortune in e-commerce and was already convicted of helping to launder $330 million in dirty money has been charged again by U.S. authorities, this time for trying to hide $31 million in ill-gotten bitcoins.
“Between his sentence and the date he was supposed to report [Firoz] Patel transferred 450 BTC [bitcoins]On an account at Payza.com, a virtual transfer office in the United Kingdom, we can read in a press release recently issued by the Justice Department of the District of Columbia from Washington.
On May 31, 49-year-old internet billionaire Firoz Patel was jailed on charges of money laundering and money laundering from assets derived from illegal activities.
At the time of the exchange, the total value of these bitcoins was nearly $31.7 million, the statement said.
This would have happened in 2021, just before Patel turned himself in to prison authorities to serve a sentence in another case.
in full knowledge
In the case, Patel was sentenced to 36 months in prison for illegally laundering around $330 million over a 6-year period. His younger brother Ferhan was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
At the time, the brothers headed a company that operated Payza, Egopay and Alertpay websites. These were trading platforms, some of which operated without a license and were incorporated into Belize as a tax haven.
The brothers are said to have set up these companies to compete with e-commerce giant PayPal.
Among their clients were groups steeped in child pornography, drug trafficking, Ponzi-type scams and other pyramid and criminal enterprises.
By pleading guilty, they both admitted to their plans and that they carried them out with full knowledge of the facts.
However, the eldest of the criminal brothers managed to get a remand date later.
Identity fraud
However Patel had to disclose all his assets. A US court has since seized all of his proceeds and assets involved in the crimes, including 450 illegally traded bitcoins.
“A virtual exchange account was opened using someone else’s name and date of birth, but with an email address and phone number controlled by Firoz Patel,” US authorities allege.
When the Bureau of Exchange asked for more information, it got a response on behalf of a person previously associated with Payza, it explained.
The account and its $31.7 million worth of funds have been frozen.
Problems here too
Although he does not do business in the United States, Patel is also being hunted by Quebec authorities. As of 2018, Revenu Québec has millions of dollars in unpaid taxes in its sights.
Before his legal setbacks, the Montrealer was living the good life in the city, driving around in a Porsche and posting photos of himself on Facebook in the company of stars like former mayor Denis Goderre and hockey player PK Subban.
The US Department of Justice requested that Patel be detained pending trial.
In collaboration with Philippe Langlois of the Intelligence Division
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