A regular cryptocurrency exchanger ended up before the judge for having cashed payments by virtual cards. The money was the result of a scam.

A thirty-year-old from the Riviera will pay dearly for his lightness in his online transactions. This real estate agent, active in the sale and purchase of bitcoins, has just been convicted of money laundering after accepting large payments of dubious origin in exchange for cryptocurrency. However, it was not to him that the complainant originally wanted it.

Rewinds: a Ticino internet user is tricked by anonymous people posing as the management service of her payment account PayPal. She is convinced by the serious tone of an email ordering her to acquire virtual payment cards for 2400 francs in order to unlock her account. It is executed, sending these scammers sixteen cards worth 150 francs, with their activation codes.

Offence by omission

It is this money that the unknowns have proposed to pay against bitcoins to the Vaudois. Yet alerted by the high price offered, the trader pocketed the amount. In order not to miss this case, he did not verify the identity of his interlocutors, as he had been able to do in the past by requiring a photo of the buyer holding his identity card.

This omission earned him his condemnation. It prevented the justice to trace back to the source of the scam, denounced by the Ticino. The Public Prosecutor's Office of Eastern Vaud considered that even if the bitcoin regular had no criminal intent, he still adopted a guilty behavior. The Penal Code states that there is no need to know that the money comes from a crime. It is enough to have been able to presume it.